


The Incomplete Crown Of Bethmoora

by Silly_Literature



Category: Hellboy (Movies 2004-2008), Prince Nuada Silverlance - Fandom
Genre: Action/Adventure, F/M, Fantasy, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:28:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 32
Words: 60,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24786979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silly_Literature/pseuds/Silly_Literature
Summary: The millenary Prince Nuada of the Elven kingdom of Bethmoora has sworn revenge against the human race, and for that he wants to gain the elves' most powerful weapon: The Golden Army. He's willing to do everything it takes to reclaim the surface of the Earth for his clan. But what if his plans cannot be fulfilled? What if the hand that sabotages his ambitions comes from his trusted circle?Loreto Clair is the world's most celebrated and critically acclaimed Jazz singer. Her voice mesmerizes and enchants, poor and rich alike from all corners of the world. Yet fame is not for free. Her musical career is a free fall with no possibility to a break or change in direction.After the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (B.P.R.D.) deals with of the massacres provoked by Prince Nuada, the special and human agents discover what may be the only way to stop the Prince of elves. And they won't let it escape.
Relationships: Hellboy and Liz Sherman, Prince Nuada and OC, Princess Nuala and Abe
Comments: 6
Kudos: 16





	1. Prologue

**Prologue**

  
  


Ruling the surface of the Earth is not a prize to win after being victorious at war, nor is it a right for the mere fact of existing as a race on Earth. It is a responsibility and honor and, beyond all else, it is the task given to The Sons of the Earth, the elves.

When the sun shone on the faces of the elves, when its rays reflected on their golden hairs and blinded their opal pupils, the millenary race born from Mother Earth ruled wherever nature proliferated. There was a time millennia ago, when the proud kingdom of Bethmoora, home of the elves, expanded beyond prairies, oceans and fields, long and wide, across the planet. The elves were one with the organic soil they stepped on; they exhaled the forest breeze, sweat the dew of little hours trapped within the ivy and bushes, swam like the fish in endless oceans which connected continents, and lived in harmony among animals and other creatures who populated the world. The evolution of man from the ape, his discovery of fire and the invention of the wheel marked the beginning of the end of the Earth.In a few millennia, humans won over terrain from the elves, mercilessly consuming natural resources. As a plague, these humans raided forests and seas, expanding their material and technological progress, and not considering the damage their hands produced on Mother Earth.

Covering what today is Scandinavia and Europe, the kingdom of Bethmoora were forced to yield their lands to the empires of men and their maelstrom of uncontrollable growth. Every time there were fewer and fewer forests to sleep in peace, the waters of rivers, lakes and oceans were less pure to drink and swim, and the air thickened more and more by toxic clouds from human chimneys. The elves stood their ground against human progress, and so the Great War protected the dominions of Mother Earth. They shed blood at both sides of the trenches. Hundreds of elves fell protecting Bethmoora. The lines of soldiers in the kingdom thinned, each battle less capable to stop the advancing of human troops towards the royal palace. One day the best goblin engineer of the clan offered King Balor of The Elves to build an army capable enough to fight the humans and recover their lost lands. His son, Prince Nuada, insisted the king accept the offer, and so the goblin engineer created four thousand nine hundred golden mechanical soldiers with no remorse, fatigue, hunger or thirst, all designed to obey the orders of those who possessed the crown of the throne of Bethmoora.

The Golden Army mutilated any human on its path, not discriminating between women, children, or the elderly. The humans fought the best they could, and many elves, orcs and goblin soldiers fell defending their kingdom, however, it was the humans who suffered the consequences of their own greed. Endless fields, forests and prairies were submerged under rivers of human blood, and covered by their corpses. Prince Nuada, son of King Balor and heir to the throne of Bethmoora, sighed in relief, after seeing the human threat finally annihilated by the golden blades of their soldiers, yet his twin sister, Princess Nuala, and their father did not share his sentiment. Defeated by remorse and horror, after seeing the massacre the Golden Army waged upon Earth, King Balor made a truce with the surviving humans. The elves, along with all other magical creatures of their clan, would keep to the forests while the humans kept to the cities.He divided his crown, the key of command to the Golden Army, into three pieces. He gave one to his daughter, Princess Nuala. He kept the second piece for himself, then he gave the third and last piece to the humans. With the crown incomplete, the Golden Army would have no master, and would lay dormant forever in the depths of Northern Ireland, the land which was once the home of Elven royalty.

Prince Nuada took his father's decision as an act of weakness. His father, who was once a proud warrior, bent to the human will, which had caused so much destruction to their people. The truce facilitated the seizure of the remnant Elven territory on Earth, forcing them to search for refuge underground. Men continued creating machinery, factories and cities which contaminated the seas, air and forests turning nature into a mere resource at their disposal. One day, the Prince went into exile, unable to look his father in the eyes and not blame him for the precarious situation he had reduced the elves to. Millennia of life underground turned the skin and eyes of the elves sensitive to sunlight and heat. When humans discovered electricity and channeled it to produce artificial light, the elves noticed they could tolerate it because it did not emit UV radiation. However, with no sun exposure their skin stopped producing melanin, giving them a sickly pale complexion and pupils, once light blue and green as the crystal sea and lake waters, turned amber capable of seeing in the night like an owl, yet unable to stand the daylight.

Prince Nuada wandered the world, alongside his loyal friend, a Troll by the name of Wink, for thousands of years. The solitude of immortal life, the constant melancholy for his lost home, and of his father's treason to his people poisoned his heart with a thirst for revenge and an incurable wrath, which darkened his vision of the world. He learned the languages of men, mastered the art of moving in the shadows, deepened his studies in goblin mechanics, and never stopped training, as the elite warrior he was. What remained from the once proud kingdom of Bethmoora found refuge today, in the sewers of the human metropolis of New York, at the north of the American continent. In his mind, shame tainted the face of his father, for having allowed the massacre on Mother Earth to reach its current, critical state.

When he left Bethmoora, he swore he would come back the day his people needed him the most.

That day had arrived. The heart of Mother Earth beat ever slower from the core of the planet. She was dying, and with each breath, screaming for help. The 21st century had arrived, and humans had spread to every corner of the planet, like an invasive species. No piece of land was free from their corruption. Above every human city hung a cloud formed by the emissions of millions of motorized vehicles and industries. Humans had turned oceans into their personal dumpsters. Industrial fishing dragged across the floor of the ocean, destroying the delicate balance of its ecosystem. They enslaved animals in industrial farms where the humans tortured them, freely slaughtering them to steal every bit from their mangled corpses for consumption. Regardless of where the Prince went, humans endlessly consumed the material trash they produced. The culture of consumerism made more and more garbage while they, blind and deaf to the consequences of their actions, kept shopping to fill their empty insignificant lives.

The throne of Bethmoora deserved something better than the tired status quo of his cowardly father. Prince Nuada would refuse to show mercy to the humans as his father had. The hours left of the human filth on Earth were numbered.


	2. Chapter 2

New York, US.A., Fall 2008

  
  


The gears were already turning. The spinning wheel was now impossible to stop. Prince Nuada sunk his blade through the chest of his father, all the rage of millennia thundering through his veins. His duty to recover the surface of the Earth for his people drove him to murder his own father, with a steady hand, and no remorse. However, the image of his corpse turned to stone broke his heart. The Prince caressed the former King's frozen face, his last expression of horror immortalized as a statue.

The lump in his throat made it hard to breathe. He let out a choked sigh and whispered his eternal love for him. Then he uprooted the crown piece embedded on his father's long stone coat before the terrified screams of the royal council. The sand exploded and, in the place where his father had, for thousands of years, kept his crown piece, he left a deep hole, desecrating his statue.

The Prince joined it with the crown piece he had rescued from the human auction house, and the pieces attracted and fit to each other like puzzle pieces. He turned around and glanced over the degraded amphitheater where his father had, until that night, held court. The floor of the abandoned factory was carpeted by the bodies of soldiers he had just slaughtered. The elves of the court, his own people, watched him, horror stark on their faces, still paralyzed. Desperately, the Prince searched for his sister, Princess Nuala, yet he couldn't find her. Furious, he ordered Wink to search for her, the guardian of the last crown piece, and the key to finally awaken the Golden Army.

After recovering his sword and silver lance from the claws of a shocked and horrified Chamberlain, the Prince retired to his shelter and focused on the construction of the container of goblin technology. It was golden and egg-shaped. Concentrated on its core, the Prince brought the tiny gear closer, holding it by pliers, and turning the container on its base to study where it needed extra adjustments. It had to be sufficiently resilient to protect the valuable seed of an Elemental, a forest god, giver and destroyer of all life; yet at the same time it had to open and close on its own.

A few minutes later, a Bogart arrived at his side, one of the many minor creatures living underground with the elves, and all the other magical creatures rejected by the surface. It tried to speak, but stumbled over its words, unable to make sense. The Prince noticed from the corner of his eyes, the creature bowing repeatedly, and begging with its tiny hands held to its chest. He took a deep breath and gathered his patience. With his most serene tone of voice he asked what did the Bogart want to communicate. The small being babbled that his dear Troll friend, Wink, had just been murdered by a red demon in the Troll market. The Prince felt choked with rage,grief and pain boiling through his veins. Swiftly, he placed the seed in the container, rechecked its functioning, and then put it in his pocket, and went to hunt. 

He arrived at the entrance of the Troll market, placed at the street level of an abandoned warehouse, before the bare eyes of the human metropolis only meters away. Night had already fallen, yet the city lights emanating from lampposts. Advertisements and storefronts reflected on the last of the puddles of rain, giving off a cold and artificial halo to the already horrible mass of concrete.

When he spotted his friend's killer, he couldn't believe what his amber eyes saw. The red demon wasn't alone. A blueish fish humanoid and a man with a crystal and smoke for a head accompanied him. And Nuala. She belonged at his side, not next to the strangers who had just killed his best friend.

The Prince faced them. He caught the attention of the red demon and swore he would make him pay. The demon grumbled a laugh, made a rude remark and prepared his oversized gun. He aimed it at the Prince's head. The Prince remained unfazed. He produced the golden container out of his pocket, flicked it open, and took out the seed of the Elemental.

"Kill him," he whispered and threw it to the pavement. For seconds, the group didn't know how to react. Only Nuala begged him,screaming not to do it. She knew the power of destruction contained by the being within the green seed.

It jumped their way, until it slipped through the cracks of the drainage system, with the fish humanoid trying in vain to catch it.The Prince breathed victorious. He left them alone, for they were to have enough distraction in the upcoming hours, and slipped away into the shadows of the night to reach one of the highest terraces of a nearby building.

The impact resounded on the surface, emanating from the sewers,and echoed all over the city. Then, a bang, like the first shock of a cataclysm. Traffic froze. And, silence. The Prince watched it all unfold from his view, knowing well what was coming.

In a matter of seconds the Elemental broke through the thick concrete street and crashed its way to the surface. Dozens of motorized vehicles in the area flew like stones through the air, and fell, crashing onto the road. Terrified humans ran in all directions,screams and cries for help filled the air.

The Elemental screamed back, a guttural, ancestral howl that would give any human a heart attack. The Prince admired it with devotion,as the forest god extended its arms, ivy tentacles destroying vehicles, streetlights and buildings.

Chunks of concrete fell, crushing passersby and machinery alike.The red demon went into action. Equipped with his massive gun, with the power of six cannons, he searched higher ground and climbed an enormous lit sign hanging vertically from a building.

He shot twice at the shoulders of the Elemental. Its green ichor splashed and covered the surfaces it landed upon with natural life,like drops of life falling from the sky.

The Prince felt the impact of the bullets, as if they hit his own flesh. The Elemental screamed in pain and collapsed against a building. It wailed. The Prince crept closer to the red demon from the ledge of his building. He saw in his stone hand a human infant.The Prince called the demon's attention. At street level, one of his own shouted the order to take the last shot. The demon couldn't stop observing the Elemental still holding his exaggerated gun in his hand and unable to fulfill the order.

"Demon. What are you waiting for? This is what you wanted, isn't it? Look at it, the last of its kind. Like you and I. If you kill it,the world will never see its like again. You have more in common with us than with them. You could be a king! If you cannot command, then you must obey."

The words left doubt spread across his harsh features, yet they did not dissuade him from obeying the humans. A single shot in the head finished the Elemental off, making it collapse. The Prince looked away and swallowed through the tight knot in his throat. Its ichor poured out of its motionless body and filled the city of concrete with nature. The Prince couldn't bear to witness it. His own twin sister decided to stay with them, rather than running to his side. When had his own blood betrayed him like this before?

Wink and the Elemental. Two dear friends, murdered by the same demon in the same night. The emptiness in his chest made it hard to breathe.

There would be time to put Nuala in her place. Finding her wouldn't be a problem, for he only had to connect with her telepathically, and find her location. He slipped away in between the people, evaded the guards in the area, and arrived at the Brooklyn bridge. He went down into the sewers, and to his private chambers.There, embedded in one of the rock walls, and behind the massive golden wardrobe where he kept his clothing, was his safe of the mechanical goblin.

The Prince activated the triggers by its sides, and on the base in the right order, and turned the gears to enter the password. The tiny door opened. In its interior he placed the two united crown pieces.To carry them with him was too risky, with the agents on his heels ready to hunt him down. He closed it and placed the safe in its nook behind his wardrobe.

Then, he went back to the surface, the bitterness of defeat burning his palate. The motionless countenance of his father turned statue appeared in his memory. Wink had fallen, protecting him, and following his orders. Nuala had made her loyalty clear by turning her back to him. The millenary Elemental opened its spores for the last time, filling the concrete cemetery this depressing human metropolis was with life.

There was now only one place to go in this pavement jail plagued with humans. Only one place where to find some peace and partially heal the wound of treason and loss. The attic of New York's Grand Theater.


	3. Chapter 3

American Jazz singer Loreto Clair entered the theater by a side door, guided by the house director. He apologized time and time again for still not being able to offer her a better dressing room due to the rehearsals for their current opera production reaching its final phase, and was soon to premiere. Loreto would alternate stage with the classical soloists while she would carry out her residence at the theater two nights per week. The director showed her the available dressing room and reassured her once again that he was at her disposal. His servile attitude made her uncomfortable, but she understood why he did it. The contract recently signed with the Grand Theater was a fast and simple agreement between her agent and the direction. After coming back from a three-year world tour, the fatigue of endless flight hours, the tight concert agenda and hotel life away from home almost threatened to kill her passion for singing. She was at the limits of her strength. On the other side, to disappear from the music world to take a well-deserved rest was not in good business. Record labels replaced their artists as lightly and with as much disregard as Formula One teams replaced their racers as soon as they suffered an accident and were on the road to the hospital. Fifteen uninterrupted years of musical career were taking its toll on her. The ideal solution had been to accept a residence in the middle of the Big Apple. Two concerts a week for six months in New York. To make things more interesting, Loreto and her producer would vary songs night after night. It would also be a splendid opportunity to try out fresh material and allow herself some indulgences, such as a night only for covers of her personal favorites.

After checking what would be her dressing room, she walked the backstage aisles captivated by the theater world the audience didn't have a chance to see. As she entered the music school a good fifteen years ago, she had wanted to become a classical concert pianist, but her love for Jazz won her over. She greeted the singers passing by,admiring their costumes. Today was the general rehearsal with the orchestra and costumes. She asked the director whether she could watch from the box seats. The man reassured her she didn't need to ask for permission, and that if she wished to, she'd have free entrance for every show of the theater. She made herself comfortable on a seat and got carried away by the passion of Claude Debussy's only opera, _**Peleas et Melisande.**_

As she arrived home that night, she felt excited by the prospect of the concert season before her. After the rehearsal, she talked with some singers and flatteries were exchanged. On the road to her apartment Loreto caught the sight of a huge advertisement through the taxi roof window featuring a zoom in of her face, announcing her residence at the Grand Theater, and that the first concert would take place in three days. The driver recognized her. He studied her through the rear-view mirror and checked her liking with the billboard. He repeated the gesture once and again. She simply smiled and immersed herself in her cell phone.

The day of her first concert had arrived. Loreto got up early to fulfill a tight agenda of interviews, promotion on television and photo sessions. A sudden dizziness and a stab in her stomach scared her for a minute and she feared getting sick on the night of her premiere at the Grand Theater. She suppressed the symptoms with two painkillers and didn't pay much attention. That afternoon she left for the theater and checked with her sound engineer and producer that the stage was ready and available for the rehearsal. She sat at the piano and, as she was about to play, the building shook like there was an earthquake. The impact made the chandelier high above tremble as the wooden floor quaked through her boots. Her hair stood on end,overwhelmed by a chill, and she feared the worst. New York didn't get earthquakes. The prospect of such an impact being produced supernaturally was an even scarier prospect. She checked with her sound engineer whether to continue with the rehearsal. They took a break and check the news. In a matter of minutes everything seemed to have gone back to normal. The theater crew was nervous, but their professionalism was stronger. Tickets for that night were sold out.They resumed the rehearsal and went through the track list to play.After the rehearsal, Loreto retreated to her dressing room and tried to focus on the concert. Afar she heard some ladies of the costume department gossiping about a giant green monster that had just emerged from the streets at the other extreme of the city. She was skeptical, though, and ignored them. She switched off her cell phone.The last thing she needed right now was to get distracted by crazy rumors.

It was a full house that night, and the audience's ovation was immediate as Loreto walked on the stage. It was good to be back. She thanked them for coming and wished them a nice evening. As she sang,she still felt restless about the event from a few hours ago, not allowing her growing anxiety to be visible. Her abdomen constantly contracted as a painful tight ball she could not explain, but she tried to ignore it with all her strength. Such was her years-long training onstage. The public senses the artist's fear as dogs smell adrenaline. One display of weakness onstage and they'll eat you alive.

She was secretly happy when the concert ended. It hadn't been one of her best performances and she was sure the critics would destroy her tomorrow, but for now she just wanted to go home and sleep. A stubborn and pulsing migraine insisted on drilling into her skull.Quickly, Loreto refreshed herself in her dressing room and changed to her casual clothes. Her stomach was still tight. Normally after every concert she liked to eat a snack, yet for weeks she had barely felt any appetite. She approached the theater's side door when suddenly her knees gave out and she stumbled. She feared passing out before everyone and creating speculations about her health. She leaned on the wall and cursed to herself. As she made her way out the side door, she found a large group of fans who immediately reached notebooks and pens her way asking for autographs. Camera flashes blinded and dumbfounded her. She barely managed to please her fans while two theater bouncers helped to open her way to her transportation. The record label had insisted on arranging a car with tinted windows and driver for her. She entered through the back door and, for an instant at the corners of her eyes, she believed having seen a pale man with long white hair somewhere at her right. She stared through the tinted window, unable to spot him. She was exhausted, so she decided that she was most likely hallucinating. She ordered the driver to take her home. Her next concert was in three days, and hopefully nothing strange would happen, like the sudden earthquake or alleged giant monsters terrorizing the city. New York was a jungle of concrete and madness. This city, which as an independent republic cultivates lunatics of ambition and power, or feeds into the illusion of a romantic Hollywood-esque love, could host all kinds of legends and myths to add more mysticism to its already prominent world reputation. New York was noise, life and death down every corner you turn. One could not find peace here, but money was everywhere.

  
  



	4. Chapter 4

Humans are a race which, like a virus, attacks its host until it has consumed all its natural resources. And there's only one way to fight a virus. For all the destruction they were guilty of, humans were equally responsible for the art their kind had produced throughout time. Only for the latter Prince Nuada would consider a bit of mercy for them. Along the eons of self-imposed exile of his five thousand years of age, the Prince had been witness to a handful of extraordinary humans who had burned their name into the history of this planet. Philosophers, writers, artists, musicians. They all shared a higher sensitivity than that of their fellow ordinary humans. A sensitivity for the world and life, a capability of vision and the gift to translate it into works which have forever stayed in the milestones of the Earth.

  
Of all the art forms, the one which moved the Prince the most was music. The Elven culture had also produced memorable artists,musicians and singers, but as he abandoned Bethmoora, the Prince had also abandoned all contact with his own origin, for outside the Elven kingdom there was no way of being up-to-date with its news. During the eons of solitude he assumed somewhere in himself that his sister Nuala could feel his wish to return, and his nostalgia for family life before the Great War against humans had exploded. When melancholy took the best of him and broke his heart, the Prince used to seek shelter in the darkness and heights of the attics of the world. Cathedrals and their majestic echo side by side with barn owls who, like him, also found shelter there. Attics of watchtowers belonging to human empires. Some abandoned after the battle, others too tall even for the very humans who had built them. Throughout centuries, the structures of cathedrals resounded the music of human creation. Songs of adoration to their gods, improvised instruments with which they tried to play harmonically. Palaces and castles of the leaders of human societies also had been, for centuries, witness of the artistic expression of their employees. Music was, for hundreds of years, a luxury only accessible to the ruling and wealthy class. Greed, pettiness, and lack of human empathy always prevented them from living in egalitarian societies.

  
The last four hundred years saw the birth of human musicians of extraordinary talent and gift. After cathedrals, humans began building theaters to better serve the musical expression. They decorated them with dignity and elevated the stage above the audience to display the artist status and their position proportionate to others. The Prince had always managed to climb up to the tallest attic of such buildings without being discovered. Perhaps it was because of that senseless fear humans have to darkness, or their many unimportant tasks which prevented them from venturing to the tallest spot in theaters and check the shadows. The few times they discovered him, a quick and accurate strike in the nape silenced his witnesses with no trace of his whereabouts, nor the risk of death. Above all things, the Prince was a noble warrior. He wouldn't stab in the back without reason, nor would he face an inexperienced or unarmed opponent.

  
Now, sitting upon the wooden and concrete floor of the New York Grand Theater's attic, the Prince made himself comfortable, leaning his back against the concrete wall. The small window was at floor level and looked directly to the stage. Here, high above, humans stored endless boxes piled with tools, costumes, lights and other devices whose usage the Prince knew not, nor did he wish to know. In the almost pitch-black darkness, the stench of humidity penetrated his nose. He fixed his gaze ahead, where a weak halo of light crossed the dust through the window, coming from the candle lamps hanging above the audience. The collective public mumble sounded clearly in his ears. They were uneasy. He eavesdropped comments about the underground impact produced by the Elemental as he broke from the sewers to the surface. They speculated, teasing. Finally, the lights dimmed, and the people awaited in silence. He heard the applause like a tide. The piano started its tale. A soft melody, like a caress. And her voice. The Prince closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall. He took a deep breath and sighed, exhausted, and relieved in equal measure. Loreto Clair. Her singing reminded him of Ella Fitzgerald. The Prince used to climb up this very attic when the Afro-American singer used to mesmerize rich and poor alike with her voice, back in 1940.

  
The Prince first listened to the sweet balm that was the voice of Loreto Clair, reminiscing of days long gone. The world fell at her feet. There was no corner of this urban metropolis, or across the globe which didn't promote her concerts, expectant of having her among them. Promotional billboards with her face and name advertising her performances, the sound of her voice coming from electronic devices from human houses and stores, and the transversal admiration of rich and poor, old and young for her gift. That was almost ten years ago. The Prince laid on his belly on the attic floor, crossed his arms under his head and supported his chin on his fists. He was face to face with the small window. He focused his gaze. At that height the singer barely looked like a doll moving in slow motion on stage. Something in her voice didn't sound like before. A glimpse of fear crept through her vibrato. She looked tired. Sick.Immediately his core lined up with her. The alarm activated from his loins with the certainty of being right. He continued to focus on her. The audience awarded her after every song with generous ovations and applause. For them it was of no importance whether Loreto Clair was at all feeling well. They wanted to listen to her and had paid good money for it. Such was the worth humans laid in even the most noble of things.

  
At the end of the concert, the Prince descended through the same place through which he had climbed. It was the furthest edge from the many admirers of Loreto Clair, who were already grouping up at the secondary exit of the theater. He reached ground level and was preparing to go down to the sewers below the Brooklyn bridge as he suddenly stopped in his tracks. Rarely in his life had he ever felt something remotely close to empathy or closeness for a human. This was different. It was a connection and came right from the pit of his stomach, went up to his chest and tickled his limbs and even the tips of his fingers. And like a magnet, was calling him to her. He went around the back perimeter of the theater and stayed glued to the wall until he saw from behind the corner the side exit. A sea of people sang a song by Loreto Clair, waiting to spot her for at least a few seconds. Against his better judgement, he wore the hood of his robe to blend in with the crowd. He mingled in the mass of people.Suddenly the side door opened, and the singer appeared, guarded by two large bouncers. The Prince approached and tried to catch some halo of her energy. He opened his way among her admirers and made it to the vehicle awaiting her. Loreto Clair entered it, and though the window was dark, he felt her eyes on him. It lasted a second. Despite the metal and glass separating them, the signal the Prince felt was loud and clear: Loreto Clair was dying.


	5. Chapter 5

"Fifty two fatal victims, forty-six injured and counting. Not to mention the costs in road and real-estate loss..." Tom Manning exhaled in frustration and rubbed the corners of his eyes. "The elf cannot continue releasing giant mutants in the city. We must stop him at any cost."

The director of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, B.P.R.D., said with his gaze fixed on the report of all the damages caused the previous night. Agent Krauss had ordered to collect samples of the moss, which magically grew where the giant had touched. After having raided the entire area and every little nook that could lead to the sewers, the agents could not track the steps of Prince Nuada. He had vanished from the place.

"And over seventy guests to the auction of Blackwood's who became dinner for the toothfairies _His Assness,_ the Prince left behind," Red mumbled as he lit Cohiba Robusto.

"Your Highness," Abe spoke and turned towards Princess Nuala,"you know your brother better than anybody. What is the next step?Tell us what to do and we'll do it."

Red and Liz exchanged puzzled looks at Abe's solemn and dutiful tone of voice, while Krauss and Manning ignored him. The B.P.R.D.would not manage this crisis all by itself. The mere fact of sheltering Princess Nuala in their headquarters violated the agency policies. The Princess touched her long blue gown from its exquisite golden detail and produced a diamond-shaped piece of shiny gold and symmetric carved details. She presented it before everyone's confused eyes.

"This is the last piece of the crown of Bethmoora. My brother needs it to awaken the Golden Army and wage his war against humans."

She spoke calmly and with pain in her voice, as if she had already resigned to the situation. Abe observed her and studied every move she made. The beautiful Elven Princess had just lost her father at the hands of her own brother. Any other person would be destroyed,yet there she was among strangers about to plot a trap against her own flesh and blood. Next, she took out a dark middle-sized cylinder out of her coat with similar decoration as the golden piece.

"This is the map with the location of the Golden Army." The Princess lowered her head and held the artifact against her body. She raised her amber gaze, filled with grief. "My brother cannot have any of them. My father died honoring the truce with humans. I shall do the same if that becomes necessary.

"The Golden Army! The harbingers of death! The unstoppable tide!" Krauss noted, fascinated as he studied the cylinder. "The Golden Army can't and shouldn't be awakened. While we have Your Highness's crown piece and the map..."

"My brother will come for both of them. He will find me, he always does," the Princess interrupted. Her voice sounded soft and high-pitched, yet strong. "We're twins, since birth we have a connection beyond geographical and time distances."

"So Her Highness knows where the Prince is at this moment, isn't it so?" Krauss interrogated. "With Your Highness's help we can find him and restrain him."

The Princess lowered her head and turned around to face the massive shelves with endless rows of books surrounding the room.

"Nuada has allowed his hatred to poison his heart, closing it tome. He can feel wherever I may be for I have never stopped loving him yet I to him...," she turned to the group with watery eyes. "Fora long time I had a brother with whom I grew up, we were one soul divided into two bodies, however after the Great War when he left us... His parting was not only physical. Nuada erased me and our father from his heart."

Silence overwhelmed the room. Abe ventured to approach the Princess as Red and Liz exchanged looks with no good idea to add. Krauss released steam through his mechanical gills and shook his head. Manning scratched his hair and checked the damage report again.Suddenly, an agent wearing a black suit and a tie rushed into the room bringing a binder which in front read "CONFIDENTIAL" in red letters. Manning accepted it and hastened to open it. His jaw dropped at the content. Krauss neared and studied the photographs. Red and Liz joined them. After seconds of checking them, they went to Abe and the Princess and showed them.

"We found Nuada's weak spot," the agent said triumphantly. "A witness saw him climbing up one of the back corners of the Grand Theater around 9 pm last night, one hour after the incident with the green giant. He arrived at the top and entered through one of the attic's small windows. Afterwards he was seen among the crowd of fans of the singer Loreto Clair who had just given a concert at the place."

Red laughed skeptically and grabbed the bunch of photos from Manning's hands. He checked them again, one by one. Liz and Abe were glued to him at each side. There couldn't be a mistake. How many psychopath elves pushing two meters of height, long-bleached hairs and marbled face were wandering around the city? His outfit left no room for doubts. That golden shield at the center of his clothing around his stomach was the royal seal of Bethmoora. The photographs were not only of the previous night. Others showed the Prince in similar situations, either climbing or descending from theaters or cathedrals, yet they showed a lower quality than those taken the previous night. He wore varied outfits in each picture, however time leaves no mark of its advance in the physiognomy of a five thousand-years-old elf.

"So _His Assness_ likes Loreto Clair and went to her concert just after introducing us to his friend, steroids-induced ivy," Red concluded bitterly and gave a deep puff to his Cohiba.

Liz took away the pictures from Red's hands and scanned them.

"They don't seem fake although we could run an authenticity test. Who took these older ones?"

"We did," the agent said.

Everyone gasped in shock. Manning complained nobody ever informed him about such protocol and sought support in the special agents without getting reactions other than astonished faces. The agent coughed in his fist and adjusted his black tie.

"We've been following Prince Nuada's steps for decades. We do it since we learned of the existence of the Troll market and the kingdom and clan of the Bethmoora right below our feet in New York. The troublesome past of the Prince activated our alarms," he nervously faced the Princess, "my apologies, Your Highness," he whispered and bowed with the head. She didn't react. "What we weren't expecting was the Prince to take the time to attend a concert as he usually does in the middle of his mission to awaken the Golden Army."

"Your Highness," Abe faced the Princess, "did you know about this?" he dared to inquire.

She softly shook her head and lowered her gaze.

"It has been ages of separation. Who my brother was when we still lived together is no longer who he is today. I know not of his likes, routines, schedules. He's a stranger to me."

Her voice broke. She took a deep breath and raised her delicate chin with dignity, losing her sad amber gaze in a random spot in the nothingness.

"If Prince Nuada has a liking for Miss Clair's music, then she is our safest bet to get to him and pinpoint his location," Krauss concluded and walked towards the exit.

Everyone looked at him, puzzled. The German turned around.

"You are not coming?"

Liz exchanged looks with Manning and they understood each other without needing words. She took a step forward and grabbed Krauss by the shoulder.

"If we want Loreto Clair to cooperate, let's try not to scare her by bringing a fleshless and boneless German medium, a red demon and a walking fish, all right?" she turned to the agents. "Sorry, boys."

Abe and Red shrank their shoulders and agreed.

Liz walked to the exit and as she passed by Manning, she said:

"Sir, allow me to do the talking because you'll get nervous before a beautiful and famous woman such as Loreto Clair."

  
  



	6. Chapter 6

_This residence at the Grand Theater reminds of old masters of Jazz like Dinah Washington, Billie Holiday and the immortal Ella Fitzgerald. I'm talking about the luxury of having a singer of the old Jazz school like you performing for six months in the heart of New York. What do you feel when you're compared to the greatest of Jazz? Do you believe you have made Jazz more available for the younger generations?_

Loreto nodded slowly to the journalist as she played with a piece of cheesecake, still unable to bring it to her mouth. Her stomach had been sealed and closed for days. She had barely eaten a toast and an apple in the last seventy-two hours. She simply wasn't hungry. What she felt was a void, like a constant stab right above the bellybutton. If she were to go to the doctor, she knew exactly what they'd say and she would not do it. Vacations. She drank a small sip of coffee and spoke away.

The magazine's makeup artist interrupted the conversation a few times to retouch Loreto's foundation and blush. The camera flash blinded her unannounced as the photographer shot from different angles while she continued answering every question. Towards the end,the photographer wanted to capture her sitting on the opulent dark brown leather couch in the Hilton Hotel majestic foyer in Times Square. The makeup artist applied more concealer under her eyes and lightened her cheeks with pink powders. Loreto smiled with her best cover-girl smile and was glad when the interview came to an end.

Close to 3 pm she went to the theater and found an empty stage.Rehearsals for the opera _**Peleas et Melisande**_ had already finished. The following day was its premiere, and Loreto didn't wish to miss it. Her next concert was within two days and she'd play the same track list as the previous night. She wanted to go swimming or walking through the park, but she suspected the exhaustion she had on wouldn't let her do much. She took possession of the superb grand Steinway and began playing. She was so focused on interpreting one of her favorite Nocturnes by Chopin, Opus 9 Number1, she didn't realize she was no longer alone in the room. She jumped as she suddenly opened her eyes and noticed two silhouettes towards her right. The piano strings vibrated in a chilling dissonance at her stroke. Dazed, she turned to the visitors. She didn't know them. A fifty-something-year-old bald man with a constant frown drawn in his mouth and a girl who appeared to be his daughter wearing dark short hair in a bob. It was she who came forth.

"Miss Clair, forgive us for interrupting you and arriving unannounced," the girl smiled and spoke in a casual tone. "My name is Elizabeth Sherman and my partner is Tom Manning. We're special agents at a secret department of National Security and we need your cooperation to catch a dangerous terrorist."

Loreto took five complete seconds to digest what she had just heard. A secret department of National Security? How could she help catch a terrorist?

"I- I don't think I understand," she mumbled and frowned."What do I have to do with a terrorist, would you care to explain?"she mocked and stood up.

A sudden pain pierced her abdomen and bent her over the piano. The girl and the man hastened her direction as if wanting to catch her.Stoic, Loreto endured the stab and quickly mumbled she was fine but just tired. They apologized once again for disturbing her and cut to the chase. This time it was the man who spoke.

"This terrorist is- is- is a great admirer of yours. He was in attendance at your concert last night," he said and put his hands in his trousers pockets.

He mumbled too much to be an agent of a secret department. He rather looked like a public employee.

"You heard about last night disturbances in the area of Brooklyn bridge and the quake impact around 8 pm," the man insisted.

Loreto nodded and leaned against the lid of the Steinway. Her head began turning at full speed.

"He was the responsible one. He was at your concert right after having killed over fifty people," the man said with empty eyes.

A chill ran the length of her spine. Loreto faced the man and swallowed hard. Last night right there among her audience sat a murderer and watched her concert as if nothing had happened.

"You're the only hint we have of him. He's a smart criminal who doesn't leave any trace and moves fast," the girl said and gave one step closer to Loreto. "We know he's an admirer of your music because we've been following him for years and have proof he's attended many of your concerts. If you made a last-minute change in your schedule would attract his attention enough so he comes to the theater and we could arrest him."

Loreto let herself fall onto the piano stool. What kind of madness was all this? Didn't these people realize how dangerous their plan was?

"Let's see if I understand," Loreto spoke up losing her patience, "you want me to cancel my next concert and want to use meas a bait to catch this criminal."

Both the man and the girl nodded in silence. Loreto lost all colors in her face and looked at them in complete disbelief.

"Your safety will be our top priority, Miss Clair," the man hastened to clarify. "Our agents will be both inside as also on-on- on the surroundings of the theater ready to shoot if necessary."

"The theater's director won't like to attract this kind of attention nor will he be happy about canceling one of my concerts.Tickets are already sold out," Loreto said, trying to sound shocked while all she wanted was to break free from this ridiculous plan.

She collapsed onto the piano stool and panted loudly. Her body felt like she had just ran a triathlon.

"We've already spoken with the director. Both the theater and you will be generously compensated for your cooperation. We're a government agency," the girl said and extended a credential.

Reluctantly, Loreto took it and studied it. Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. _Paranormal?_

"Well, Miss Clair? I'm afraid time is of the essence. Every day we delay catching this terrorist, he has the advantage to prepare his next hit."

Despite her apparent youth, the girl sounded a lot more reasonable and more confident than the man who accompanied her. Loreto shook her head and laughed to herself. She couldn't believe she was considering agreeing, but it seemed she had no other option. If what these people were saying was true, this terrorist had caused the panic of the previous night, deaths, injured and destruction in a matter of a few minutes. And afterwards he had attended her concert. Suddenly the image of the man with long bleached hairs came to her mind. He had a pale face like a corpse. The chill was now violent and shook her from head to toes like an electric bolt. Last night inside the Chrysler of tinted windows she met the eyes of a man at the other side of the closed door and pierced her with his darkened gaze by the shadow of his brow. Then she believed she had imagined it, but now she remembered well, it had in fact happened. Fame attracts all kinds of people fascinated by a public figure such as a singer. Cases of fans who have harassed or murdered the object of their obsession were well known. Loreto swallowed hard and dread enwrapped her in an expansive heat wave. She raised her eyes and faced the agents. She breathed deeply.

"Tell me what I must do, when and where."


	7. Chapter 7

Advised by Princess Nuala sheltered in the headquarters of the B.P.R.D., a dozen of human agents were installed in specific points at the surroundings of the facility, keeping watch on every access. Her Highness had warned them it was a matter of time until her brother the Prince found her location in search of the last piece of the Elven crown and the map to find the Golden Army. Another handful of agents were around and inside the Grand Theater in the heart of New York. Today they'd hunt him down. It was past 7 pm. Only an hour before the theater direction had called for a conference press announcing the last minute canceling of Loreto Clair's concert for that evening, arguing health issues of the singer. The agency made sure the video was showed on all big screens in Manhattan. The update did not discourage fans who were already gathering before the theater's main entrance chanting one of her songs. They held placards in the air, professing their love for the singer and full of wishes of good health and recovering.

Meanwhile, in the theater, Loreto peaked through the window shields and had a look at the street from her dressing room on the sixth floor. She was surrounded. Her audience gathered outside sung _**Your Never And My Forever**_ as the B.P.R.D. agents took possession of the building. All staff, cast and direction employees had been evacuated. The ideal trap. The theater had become a fortress, an island in the middle of the metropolis ignorant of the secret operation about to take place. The colossal red demon they called Hellboy arrived at her dressing room accompanied by the girl with short hair and friendly gaze. They assured her not to fear, for everything would be under control. The stab in her stomach manifested itself with such might as to bend her over. The girl hastened her way to catch her. Loreto felt the gag effect water her mouth with sour saliva and clouded her eyes with tears. She got rid of the girl's grip, ran to the bathroom and convulsed on the toilet, letting out all the vomit. She convinced herself the anxiety provoked it for such a unique and risky maneuver, since she had never taken part in something remotely similar. For days she could not consume a full meal, so it wasn't something merely digestive. She stood up with effort and immediately a stab in her forehead cracked her skull in two. She leaned on the sink and looked at herself in the mirror. She shook off dread as soon as she acknowledged herself in the reflection. Pale dry skin, marked blue eye rings, cheekbones sticking out, lifeless gaze and rests of blood on her lips and at the corners of her mouth. Skeptical, she checked in disgust the content of her own vomit in the toilet. Blood and yellow bile of an empty stomach.She hyperventilated. She washed her mouth and drank many sips of water from the tap, trying to rinse the bitter bile taste.

"Nuada is in the surroundings, in positions," Loreto heard the girl say from the other side of the bathroom door.

_Nuada? That's no name for a terrorist,_ she thought for herself. She went out to the dressing room and with no words both agents left her alone. In silence they pointed at the open door and to the aisle. Her acting skills left a lot to be desired.Nevertheless, her role was to pretend to pass out in the aisle as the perfect bait for the terrorist. Like a well-rehearsed choreography,all agents on the floor retreated from her field of vision,disappearing behind doors and aisles, leaving her alone. Chilling silence reigned the length of the floor. From the outside, the weak chants of her fans and the busy traffic of central New York reached her ears. The pit of her stomach shrunk in anxiety. An adrenaline different from the one she felt seconds before entering the stage or performing before cameras shrouded her like a bad omen. It was a visceral terror that froze her. Suddenly, her head began floating above the theater as if she flew at hundreds of kilometers above the ground. She barely walked towards the aisle leaning on the wall. A sudden coldness made her teeth rattle. Frozen hands and feet. She looked at both extremes of the aisle and found it deserted under the flat and cold halogen light. In the blink of an eye, everything went black. Artificial light still blinded her retinas, yet the world remained under shadows. Her legs gave up and with all her weight she collapsed on the floor. Cold. Dark. The impact against the floor arrived like a delayed effect in her back and head. She blinked one last time and believed, having seen a pale man with long bleached hairs and darkened gaze. From afar, he mumbled her name. She felt herself being lifted in his arms. Then the shots happened somewhere at a distance while falling into the abyss with no point of return or rescue. And Loreto remained trapped in the darkness.

  
  



	8. Chapter 8

The Prince opened his eyes. He controlled his breathing, sharpened all his senses and focused on his surroundings. Darkness. The left side of his head pulsed in pain. He clenched his teeth and slowly exhaled. Only when he wanted to touch that area with his hand did he realize his current situation. He couldn't move. He tried with all his strength to free himself in vain. As he pulled his limbs, he felt the tightness of metal buckles against his skin. All his body was restrained of movement. His breathing sped up. Total silence. A sterile stench reigned in the air. He didn't know where he was nor who had caught him. His last memory was having held Loreto Clair in his arms. The announcement he had heard was true. She was sick. Seriously sick. He felt it as soon as he had approached her and perceived her energy. She was slowly dying. Now he remembered the impact against his head. They had hit him intending to knock him unconscious. He tried to analyze the situation with ease. Darkness was his ally. Thousands of years living underground had developed the elves' vision, turning their pupils in reflectors of the scarce light available. He studied again his surroundings with his eyes, for his head was also retrained of movement. He couldn't spot any form of furniture around.

  
The light halo was sudden. A lightening shorter than a second of time. It hit his skin and retinas like a live fire flame. He let out a scream in pain. He struggled, unable to protect himself. Once again the halo returned, this time for three seconds. They were three centuries of agony. The exposed skin of his torso, arms and face burned like being skinned alive. He clenched his eyes with all his strength, yet the light filtered through, burning his pupils. The guttural scream ached in his throat, tears of pain watered his eyes and ran down his cheeks. He was standing yet trapped to a sort of structure at his back. Darkness returned. The Prince panted, exhausted. All his body pulsed and burned in pain as also his eyes did. 

  
"Your Highness, I am agent Johann Krauss. We need to know the location of the incomplete crown of Bethmoora. Will you cooperate with us?"

  
The voice sounded metallic from above and with a strong German accent. Nuada breathed heavily as the rage nested in his chest and tensed every single one of his muscles.

  
"Never," he whispered between his teeth.

  
The light returned. His own torn shout deafened him. The stabs were like a million needles stinging in his organs. His brain dilated inside his head and pressed against his skull. Each organ in his body boiled about to explode.

  
"Stop! You're hurting the Princess!"

  
Another masculine voice screamed from above. The light stopped. Nuada panted, fatigued. He fought against the agony and tried to focus. The Princess. Nuala. He was then in the hands of the agents with whom she had left. She was to blame for him having been caught.She had helped them. Rage consumed his heart, burned by light. There was only one thing in such disadvantageous panorama that made him crack a smirk of satisfaction. Without attempting it he was inside the facility where Nuala along with the last piece of the crown and the map to the Golden Army also were. First, he'd need to escape this torture chamber and recover his strength. He acknowledged then that, were he not chained to the structure at his back, he would have already collapsed to the floor. Silence came back along with total darkness. His skin still burned. They had undressed him from his coat. Where were his sword and lance? They'd pay for this. Something made little sense. What were those agents doing in the theater where Loreto Clair performed? And what had happened with her after he fell unconscious? The realization dried his mouth and made him slowly exhale in a supernatural effort to not be ruled by wrath. Nuala was not the one who helped them capture him, but Loreto Clair.

***

Red opened his way through the agents with the unconscious singer in his arms. The truck was waiting for them in front of the theater's side door. Nuada had already been restrained and taken to the agency. What they weren't counting on was that the singer would take the order of passing out literally. As soon as they all entered the vehicle, the engine roared at full speed and dodged the traffic until reaching the private heliport. They jumped in the helicopter with their destination to the agency headquarters. Loreto Clair was still unconscious. Red, Liz, and Abe exchanged concerned looks. And what if they intervened too late and Nuada had hurt her? Abe took off the black leather glove from his right hand and opened his fingers until exposing his webfeet. He neared it to the singer and like a radar he levitated his hand above her body, beginning at her head. When he reached her abdomen he stopped. He faced his partners.

  
"What does she have, Abe?!," Liz urged.

  
Abe raised the singer's T-shirt and stuck his hand on her stomach.Then he took off the glove of his left hand and with both palms he examined all her core. He swallowed hard.

  
"I'm afraid miss Clair has a malignant tumor in her stomach."

  
As soon as the helicopter touched firm soil, Liz, Abe and Red carrying the singer in his arms ran inside the agency. Manning saw them puzzled as they passed by. Liz shouted the order to prepare the medical department for they had an emergency. After shortening the road through the labyrinthine aisles, they arrived at last to the surgery and medical area. The agency counted with some of the best doctors and scientists in the country and world under a strict confidentiality contract to treat agents in case of wounds caused during field missions as also to tend to them in case of sickness. Red left Loreto Clair on the surgery bed and, frowned, took two steps backwards. Liz took his stone hand and without words invited him to wait outside. Abe hastened to update the doctors. In a matter of seconds all the medical staff prepared the patient, injected infusion through an intravenous catheter at the back of her right hand and applied local and general anesthesia.

  
After six hours of intervention through laparoscopy, the team of surgeons and Abe extirpated the tumor. It was malignant, just as Abe had read. The agency's medical doctors had complete trust in the readings of Agent Sapien. In over four decades working side by side with him, his extrasensory and psychic skill was a hundred percent precise in all kinds of changes in human bodies as also in that of other species. The agent took off his gloves and mask and went out of the surgery room. Immediately Liz and Red interrogated him.

  
"We removed it," he said in a low voice, exhausted, "which doesn't mean metastasis may not occur. Let's hope not. We induced Miss Clair into a coma for her recovery."

  
Red gave him a tap on the shoulder and congratulated him.

  
"It seemed to me her look was not at all healthy," Liz commented like thinking out loud. "When Manning and I went to the theater to talk to her. Her extreme thinness and her exhausted demeanor alarmed me, but I thought it was because of the typical rock star lifestyle."

  
"Jazz, Liz, Loreto Clair sings the sweet Jazz," Red said and hugged her by the shoulders.

  
The three walked towards the library. In one aisle Manning found them and interrogated them about what had been the chaos of a few hours ago and what had happened with Miss Clair. Abe explained everything. The agency's director was shocked when he learned they had accidentally helped the singer to get rid of a stomach cancer. He lamented the young age of Loreto Clair and damned the disease which day by day claims millions of victims worldwide.

  
"How old do you think she is, Manning?," Red mocked."Cosmetics do wonders," he joked.

  
Everyone stood still. Princess Nuala was tumbled down against one of the many closed doors of the aisle. Abe ran to aid her. He took her in his arms. She shook. She screamed in pain at the slightest touch and retreated against the opposite wall like a prey. Red knocked the door over with his stone hand. Inside, they found Krauss before a double mirror and at the other side, Nuada chained from head to toes screaming in pain. Liz, Manning and Abe joined Red and faced the German agent. He was exposing the Prince to ultraviolet light. Abe, who differed from Red never letting himself be ruled by rage, slapped Krauss's hand away from the bottom. The cabin where the Prince was held captive returned to darkness.

  
"Stop! You're hurting the Princess!," he screamed, enraged.

  
Krauss exhaled through his mechanical gills.

  
"New orders from Washington," he said undisturbed. "We must get the crown of Bethmoora and neutralize once and for all the Elven threat."


	9. Chapter 9

Loreto woke up suddenly. Immediately her center pulsed in alert. Her retinas acclimated to the indirect light in the surroundings. She was laying. She raised her head and saw herself in a bed. Was she in the hospital? The intravenous catheters connected to the back of her right hand and to the left arm told her it seemed so. The index of her left hand had a gray plastic tweezers. It measured her pulse. Each pulse of her finger matched with a beep, which at that moment became apparent to her ears. She studied her surroundings. Before the feet of the bed was a wardrobe of minimalist design. At her left, a leather armchair and a design standing lamp. The floor was covered with a thick white rug inviting to stand on it with bare feet. Both the walls as also the roof were painted plain white, and the floor had dark gray tiles of opaque look. A big horizontal mirror covered a prominent part of the wall at her right along with a closed door. Even though the room did not look like a hospital one, the bed did for it had rails at the side and a remote control to adjust different positions. Suddenly she was conscious of the coldness in her limbs. She trembled and all the pores in her skin stood in goosebumps. She fought against the shuddering of her teeth and tried to stand up from the bed. Her back, shoulders and neck complained releasing powerful pulls and stabs forcing her to lay back on the mattress. She took the control remote of the bed, resting at the reach of her right hand against her thigh on the comforter. She tried to operate it and had to ignore the uncomfortable sensation of the needle crushing against the vein under her skin. With effort she pressed the bottom to lift the head. At the corner of her eyes to the right she saw somebody entering the room. It was a man who wore a white coat. He asked how she was feeling, whether he could do something for her. Only then she noticed how thirsty and hungry she was.

"Where am I? Who brought me here?," she asked, still dizzy.

"You find yourself in the facilities of the B.P.R.D., Miss Clair," the man said as he wrote in a binder the values of the screens at both her sides. "The agents Hellboy, Sherman and Sapien brought you here from the theater. You lost consciousness."

It took her awhile to find the last memory before passing out. She had lost balance and fallen to the floor. Then somebody had taken her in their arms and everything vanished behind a black blanket. The terrorist. Nuada? The pit of her stomach dropped in fear.

"Did they catch the terrorist?"

The man nodded, revealing no further detail.

"Then I can go home already," she said and attempted to get up from the bed.

There was no movement she attempted that wouldn't release a chain of cramps. How long had she been in bed?

"I'm afraid we can't sign your release just yet," the man said and finished writing on his binder. He closed it and faced her, "Miss Clair, we found an adenocarcinoma in the wall of your stomach."

For a good two or three seconds all Loreto could hear was a loud beep in her ears. Her head pulsed, about to boil. She searched inside the man's eyes for the meaning of what he had just said, or rather, the confirmation he wasn't referring to what she feared. The man coughed in his fist and put away the binder somewhere at the feet of the bed. He returned by her side.

"It's a malignant tumor."

Her gaze watered, bulging in tears. She blinked several times, unable to believe. Cancer? She? How?

"For your peace of mind I inform you we have successfully removed it. What's left now to do is to control the possibility of a metastasis to the neighboring organs."

Loreto placed her hands on her abdomen and palpated her skin under the chemise she had on. There they were, five small bandages spread along her core. She stood up and let herself fall on the bed. She barely felt the pull of each of them. These scars weren't recent.

"When was I operated? What day is it?," she barely uttered with a thin thread of voice.

"Exactly two weeks ago. We induced a coma to facilitate and quicken the regeneration process."

She didn't know what dazzled her the most. Whether the fact of having cancer, of having been operated without her consent or having been in a coma absent from the world for two weeks. She had never been in a hospital for more than two days in a row and due to nothing more serious than a common flu as she was a child. This was no hospital. It was that secret agency of paranormal investigation. How had they even discovered the tumor in her stomach? Don't you actually need a bunch of exams to determine the nature and degree of a cancer? A second door at her left opened and a blue figure entered. She didn't believe what her eyes saw. If her senses weren't betraying her, that which now neared towards her looked like a mutant halfway between a human and a fish. What kind of place was this?! The man with a white coat, a medical doctor she assumed, greeted it,commented on the stable values of her vital signals and that he had just informed Loreto about the surgery and its repercussions.

"I'm glad to see you awake and on the mend, Miss Clair," the man-fish said in impeccable English.

Loreto opened her eyes at their maximum capacity. She observed him, fascinated and horrified in equal measure. He was singularly skinny and tall. He had big gills at both sides of his tall neck, huge deep blue almond-shaped eyes, a nose lost under the curve of his profile and marbled skin in different shades of blue. He only wore a black pair of Bermuda shorts and sneakers of the same color. He possessed the torso of a human man with marked pectorals and abs. He asked her permission to remove the blanket and approached his web-footed hands to her stomach. For a few seconds his hands levitated millimeters away from her chemise as he lost his gaze in the nothingness. The vertical membranes which were his eyelids opened and closed a few times. Then he came back to himself and covered her with the blanket.

"I don't perceive cancer cells," he said with satisfaction and faced the doctor.

"It was Agent Sapien who felt the tumor inside your abdomen," the doctor clarified and spoke to her.

"What are you?," Loreto mumbled and neared a hand to the fish-man.

The doctor smirked and left.

"I'm an amphibian humanoid," he said with total normality. "I understand that, for people unaware of my existence as also that of my brother Red, we may scare with our appearances. My apologies," he said and lowered his head.

"You're talking about agent Hellboy, right?"

The humanoid nodded.

"Is he your brother?," Loreto barely uttered.

"Not by blood, clearly," he joked. "We both were discovered by this agency and raised by the same scientist, Professor Broom."

"What happened to the terrorist?"

"We captured him. He's under surveillance in this facility. He was about to get his hands on a weapon capable of exterminating the human race. We had to stop him. But about that you mustn't worry. Your task is to rest and to fully recover."

The terrorist was under the same roof as she meters away. She had helped to capture him. If he found her in this place... Agent Sapien seemed to feel her fear.

"Do not fear, Miss Clair. We won't allow him to approach you. Prince Nuada is totally restricted from movement and too weak to escape," the agent said, and with a brief gesture he said goodbye and left the room.

A prince? A terrorist prince? There was a piece of information she was missing to even make sense of all of this. Restricted of movement and too weak? That could only mean one thing: they were torturing him.

  
  



	10. Chapter 10

From the day Loreto woke up from coma, two nurses began tending to her needs and encouraging, or better said forcing her, to stand up and walk. At the beginning she had to battle the strong dizziness and loss of balance produced by two complete weeks unconscious and in bed. Slowly and with their help on both her sides, Loreto took every time longer walks through the hallway of the agency. Days after recovering consciousness they removed the stitches of the five minor cuts through which they had operated her abdomen with laparoscopy. She wore her usual outfit she had on the day they captured the terrorist: a pair of skinny jeans, a long-sleeves white T-shirt, alight pink woolen cardigan and sneakers. She didn't know for how much longer she had to stay in that place, so she asked to be arranged at least three more outfits, a task which happened with no further trouble.

The agency facilities were endless as also were many of its hallways. All common areas had a clinical look from the floor, up through the walls and the roof. All coated in light plain cold gray.Some doors along the hallway were open, allowing the opportunity to peek through to the inside. One time she saw a being the size of a bear or a gorilla with long limbs and covered in thick fur or spikes alike to a porcupine. It roared deeply as a group of six or eight agents and scientists surrounded it and tried to restrain it. This wasn't an uncommon panorama in this place. Another time she saw a red colored being which reminded her of a rattlesnake. It was so huge it hunched against the roof and slid through the walls like a worm. In its surroundings, a group of scientists wrote on tablets and binders as they kept it at bay with electric shocks. They tied the creature to a thick chain around its midsection. It opened its mouth, exposing its sharp fangs and lance-pointy tongue. Where the hell did they get these beings? Did they actually live among humans unaware of them?What did they do with them? The answer arrived on its own with the roars of pain resounding all across the hallway. Torn screams from the depths of monstrous creatures at the mercy of agents with guns,electric shocks and scientists carrying syringes loaded with unknown substances.

Nights in the room designated to Loreto were long and sleepless.She was living meters away and under the same roof of living beings,straight out of horror movies and nightmares. And somewhere out thereat the other side of her closed door was the terrorist she had help capture. The lack of sleep began taking its toll on her. She didn't know where in the country or the world the agency was located. There were no windows. She had zero notion of dawn or sunset. Her sleep rhythm accommodated her whenever she felt tired either during day or night. Everyone in this place seemed to function like that. As days passed doctors continued doing exams on her to control the evolution of her cancer. They had assured her she was not to celebrate just yet, for it was very common for cancer cells to return and make metastasis after the removal of a malignant tumor. Should that be the case, the only road would be chemotherapy. That word had the weight of a death sentence. She was still struggling to get used to being a cancer patient. Out there her parents, friends, agent, producer and the record label had no idea where Loreto was nor about what she was going through. They might had declared her as missing. Her tour and engagements agenda extended years into the future. She didn't know whether she'd still be alive in one year's time. Nevertheless,physically she felt better and the surgery scars were no longer impediment for her to walk like she normally did. Her appetite had returned and so had the color to her cheeks.

She noticed the residents of this place, the agents who had captured the terrorist and whom she had helped, used to gather in around hall of opulent design and decoration which walls were an endless parade of book shelves. In one extreme there was a giant aquarium she soon realized was the home of Agent Sapien. Agent Hellboy, Red as he was called due to the color of his skin and shortened horns, and Agent Sherman, the girl who at first glance looked like yet another normal human, spent hours in that place either talking, listening to music or drinking beers. To whom she had yet seen was the tall female figure of frail complexion and blond straight hairs who joined them one day. Agent Sapien did the introductions.

"Miss Clair, allow me to introduce you to Her Highness Princess Nuala," he said in all solemnity.

A princess? Loreto offered her hand to greet her but got no reaction. She looked challenged by the happenings. She studied her.She was similarly tall as Agent Sapien, had a pale face with a huge scar which divided her cheekbones and nose. Her skin looked like it was made of marble. The amber eyes with unspeakable sadness shining through. Both her eyelids and also her mouth looked reddish, as if she had been crying for centuries. Her outfit showed her noble title.The long dress was royal blue and fashioned in a tunic design. In the middle a golden diamond-shape corset held together it with superb details in chains and symmetric engravings. The Princess observed her for only a few seconds and exchanging no word; she walked by the side of Agent Sapien. She said something in an indistinct voice and they left to the opposite extreme of the room.

"Don't take it personally," Agent Sherman said as she let herself fall onto the big brown leather sofa. "I wouldn't like to be in her shoes, to be honest. If my brother was a psychopath and I had to be the one to give him to the authorities..."

Loreto turned around and searched the Princess with her gaze. Was she actually the terrorist's sister? Agents Hellboy and Sherman read her thoughts.

"Yep, they're two drops of water," Red said, opening a bar of Snickers.

Loreto had helped to capture her brother, yet the Princess was seeking shelter in the agency and working with them against her own blood. As Agent Sherman had said, between doing the right thing and what the heart dictates, the decision is the hardest one in life. The Princess had chosen for the right thing and it was killing her.

The following day Loreto went out of her room determined to find the terrorist. Judging by the suffering written all over his sister's face, they couldn't be doing any good to him. She walked the endless hallways and eavesdropped at every closed door. Besides seeing other abominations, she found no trace of the Prince. After walking for hours on every free access corner in the facility, she was going to give up the search as she spotted a male figure dressed in dark green, military-like overall who in that moment was opening a door. Loreto hastened and encountered him. The figure turned towards her. Loreto let out a scream before she could control herself. He had no head. In its place, there was a kind of transparent helmet filled with... smoke? Both in front as at the sides of the structure above his shoulders, he had smoke valves which articulated when he spoke.This boneless and fleshless being spoke. He greeted her like it was understood. He introduced himself. Agent Johann Krauss. The name matched his strong German accent. What was it? She decided not to ask.

The department door showed a visible hollow in the handle's area.The Agent opened the way for her, arguing that thanks to her cooperation they had caught the criminal and for that reason she had the right to be there and watch. The division just at the other side of the door was reduced in size. A control panel with dozens of switchers and buttons extended from wall to wall and above it, a glass like a window. Loreto swallowed hard through the dry throat and bravely endured the wave of terror born from her core at the image at the other side. The room was slightly bigger and slightly illuminated by the halogen from the roof. All she could see was him. They had immobilized him to a vertical execution-like structure with dozens of metallic belts from the feet, going up through his long legs, naked torso, arms, neck and head. He was just as pale as the Princess and had the same straight long blond hairs and such scar crossing both cheekbones. The harshness of his features differed from his sister.The gaze hidden under a prominent frow focused in the window as if he knew himself watched. Loreto felt a chill as soon as she looked into his eyes, which from the distance looked yellow. The skin of both his mouth was also that around his eyes was of a dark gray shade, almost black.

"What has this man done to be captured and held in these conditions?," Loreto asked with a broken voice, unable to take her eyes off him.

"Man? You're mistaken, Miss Clair. Prince Nuada is no man, he's an elf. He's the heir to the throne of the Elven kingdom of Bethmoora, located in the depths beneath New York. He wants to wage war against humans to recover the surface of the Earth and for that he murdered his own father, King Balor, cold-bloodedly. If Her Highness Princess Nuala hadn't come to us and if you hadn't helped to capture him, we may have been sorry by now."

Loreto was jaw dropped. An elf? After nearly a month in this place, two weeks in a coma and almost two conscious, she shouldn't have been surprised. However, the idea that elves really existed fascinated and unsettled her at the same time. They lived under New York. They lived underground. And he had murdered his father. She studied him again. He seemed in a kind of trance. He couldn't move,but neither did he seem alarmed. A disturbing serenity dominated his countenance.

"But, how can only one man, I mean elf, exterminate the whole human race?"

"With the help of the Golden Army," Agent Krauss cleared out.

Next, he pressed a button and bent over the microphone.

"Well Your Highness, will you cooperate with us today? Where is the incomplete crown of Bethmoora?"

Silence.

Agent Krauss pressed another button of the panel and immediately the room at the other side of the window lit in bright ultraviolet halo. The Prince screamed and clenched his jaw and eyes. He was tearing up. Far away, Loreto heard a female scream of pain. She stuck her hand to the window. The knot in her throat strangled her. The agent raised the finger from the button and the ultraviolet light ceased to shine. The Prince panted heavily, his chest and abdomen rose and collapsed against the metallic belts. Minutes later Agent Sapien arrived, erupting in the room.

"There must be another way to get the information, doctor Krauss. The Princess!," he begged strongly.

The German Agent released smoke through his mechanic gills,clicked the heels of his boots in classic German greeting and turned around. Loreto questioned Agent Sapien with her eyes.

"They're twins. What one suffers, the other does too. The link they share is very deep," he said with sadness in his voice and lowered his head.

Loreto watched the Prince one more time. If he weren't tied to such a structure, he would have already collapsed to the floor. He had been captured weeks ago and since then he was in such a state.Were elves actually intolerant to sunlight? He still gasped, his eyes still cried, yet his demeanor continued stern and focused ahead. An alien sensation of rage nested in the pit of her stomach and went upwards like lava through her chest, burning her cheeks.

"What is the incomplete crown of Bethmoora?," Loreto uttered,still fixed on the Prince. She swallowed hard through the tight knot in her throat and clenched her fists at each side of her hips.

"The crown of the Elven kingdom's throne. The Prince has in his possession two of the three parts which build it. He recovered the one which was in human hands from an auction house, killing seventy people in the process. The other piece he took it from the corpse of his father after killing him. Princess Nuala has the last piece.Therefore, we protect her. We know he won't hurt her for he would hurt himself but in any case, she is better off here with us than alone at his mercy," Agent Sapien said with frustration in his voice. "Once the crown is whole, the Prince will be able to awaken the Golden Army, the armed hand of the elves which lays dormant awaiting their master, the King. There was already a war between elves and humans thousands of years ago, and the elves with its help slaughtered all humans in its path. The Golden Army cannot be awakened."

She watched the elf locked like a psychopath through the glass.Everything about him emanated pride, honor and dignity even before such desolated panorama. Huge scars marked his arms and chest.Chiseled muscles, concentrated gaze into nothingness, stone-tight fists, the strength of his unalterable features. And however during the time Loreto was in that room, she felt the certainty there was something, a key piece of information, she didn't know. What was this place but a paranormal version of Guantanamo prison? Even the most abhorrent criminal deserves a just trial. Having agreed to assist in the operation to capture him like a bait to attract him to the theater had been a huge mistake. She had to listen to him; she had to know why he did what he did, what was he pursuing, what was at stake.Something in his aura shattered her with fear but, on the other hand,she didn't have much to lose. Unaware of the fact, Loreto had lived with a stomach cancer for who knows how long. Death surrounded her,either as a terminal disease, the prisoner monsters of this place or the rage of an elven prince enemy of humanity. If there was one thing made clear repeatedly in history is that, in the same person the terrorist for some and the freedom fighter for others may hide. The only one fighter, the pioneer, the leader of the battalion, the last one who falls with his folk. The last warrior.

Agent Sapien invited her to leave that place. With no words, he tried to let her know she shouldn't be there. Loreto obeyed, but before doing so she studied the big control panel and tried to memorize it. This would not be the last time she'd visit that room.

  
  



	11. Chapter 11

Out there the world continued turning with the urgency of mortals. They continued destroying forests, polluting the air and water, torturing animals and killing fertile soil while he was still in the hands of those who had more in common with the elves and the magical creatures of Bethmoora than with humans. Regardless, they worked for them. The Prince tightened his fists, clenched his jaw and swallowed bitter saliva through his dry throat. His exposed skin burned and inside his eyes, right behind his eyeballs, a pressure like a stab prevented him from having them open for more than a few seconds.Almost four weeks of torture, he kept count as an exercise for mental sanity. He knew Nuala was near at meters of distance. He called her telepathically time and again, yet she refused to go to him. She had left him to his own device and in the hands of torturers. She was also suffering. Every light shock on his flesh, every unspeakable pain on his skin and retinas unable to digest the violet halo coming from all directions affected her. He could feel her curling in pain along with him. Despite her own torture, Nuala remained still and deaf to her brother's plea for help. If he was to escape it had to be on his own, but how? His guts shrunk in thirst and hunger, his skull stabbed with the never-ending physical and mental fatigue. Was this his end? Five thousand years of existence fighting with his own hands for his freedom and that of his people to end up reduced to a prisoner in the enemy's hands. Would they show him as a trophy of war when he drew his last breath out of his lungs? He knew they were capable of that.

The Prince attempted, with the little strength he still had, to rest his mind by going into a trance. It was the closest to sleeping he could do, tied vertically as he was to the structure at his back.Silence dominated all around him, yet at any minute the German tin man would come back and would apply another dose of light. He'd die first before revealing the incomplete crown of Bethmoora's location.It was his as heir to the throne, or it was to be nobody's. The crown, complete or not, was Elven and so was it to remain. Never, if he could help it, was it to fall in human hands. Not again. He wouldn't make his father's mistake, which sufficient damage had already done. He tried to empty his thoughts. His dermis tickled like millions of needles stabbing him over and over again. As his consciousness began elevating above his body, he heard a noise. He woke up. Immediately one of the metal belts released a click and opened. It was the one holding his head by the forehead. Then followed the one around his neck. One by one the belts of his core and arms opened. He held tight to the structure with the little strength he had left. His fingers and knuckles hurt at the effort.Those holding his hips, legs and feet followed. The Prince collapsed hard on the floor. The impact against his naked skin made him hunch in pain as all his muscles cramped and pulled with stabs. He clenched his teeth and jaw, twisting and grumbling in pain from the back of his throat. He heard the door opening. He could hardly lift his head. Impossible. Who entered the chamber in that moment was Loreto Clair. She ran towards him carrying a big white blanket and covered him completely with it. She neared a bottle of water and carefully raised his head from the floor. Every cell of his body ached, the wound of weeks long bearing the light halos. It took him a big effort to hold his head above the floor. She held him by the nape and neared the bottle to his mouth. He drank the whole content in one sip, the water drops ran out of the corners of his mouth wetting his neck. The freshness returned some life into his body. He gasped for air as soon as he drank the last drop.

"Oh my god!," Loreto Clair cried as she watched his face and attempted to approach her hand to his cheek.

The brush shocked him. He felt like he had been skinned alive. He curled backwards with the little strength left. She did the same with her hand and begged him for forgiveness. He looked into her eyes. She cried. Loreto Clair desperately scanned the room with her eyes, then offered her hands to help him sit against the wall. Every single insignificant movement released a chain of spasms and stabs from the head to the tip of his toes. Finally, he supported his back against the wall. He gasped for air at the effort. Loreto Clair covered him with the blanket and hooked the corners behind his shoulders.

"Tell me what you need," she said with a broken voice in a crouch facing him. "You need to recover your strength. What food can I bring you? You need to eat!"

"Why do you help me, human?," the Prince mumbled, still hardly bearing the pain with his head supported against the wall. "Weren't you the one responsible for my current situation?"

"No!," she cried and sobbed the nose. "I was told you were a dangerous terrorist that had to be caught at any cost. I didn't know they'd torture you like this."

Her voice broke and let her head fall. Her sobbing was discreet yet clear. The Prince turned slowly his pupils towards her direction. Loreto Clair rose her face and dried her tears with the sleeve. She looked small, harmless. He felt sorry for her. She had just been a mere pawn in his capture. The mistake was his for having allowed himself to be seen climbing or descending from the theater at the days of her concerts. The rest hadn't been so difficult to infer for the agents of this place.

"You can blame me later when we get out of here but first you need to recover," she said with a trembling yet firm tone. "There are guards on shift in all hallways but the rest of the staff seems to sleep. What do you need to eat?"

"All that which nature freely gives and nothing that once lived and walked the Earth," the Prince uttered with effort and closed his eyes in an attempt to ease the constant burn.

Without further ado, Loreto Clair nodded. She got up from the floor and went out of the place. _Later, when we get out of here._ How was she going to be able to escort him out having the same muscle mass than a little girl? He didn't know where they had hidden his coat and sword, but he felt the presence of his silver lance in the surroundings. Forged from magical Elven silver on the day of his birth, his lance was a gift from his father as the heir to the throne and the one responsible for giving him his surname, Silverlance. Loyal partner in countless battles and training, slayer of foes, extension of his arm like a blade born out of his own flesh, his lance was there somewhere in this chamber. Now that he could finally move, the Prince took a deep breath and against cramps and pulls tried to stand up. It was a mistake. Everything turned in circles and he landed with all his weight on the metal floor. He was weaker than what he had initially admitted. He bit his teeth and hardly uttered a throaty growl to the expansive wave of pain that the impact provoked in all his body. He needed to eat. The human was right, he reluctantly admitted. He sat back on the floor with his back against the wall. He covered himself with the blanket Loreto Clair had brought. Only now was he conscious of the softness of the tissue against his injured naked skin. He was exhausted. From that position he studied the walls, floor and roof, unable to spot any secret door or nook where his lance might have been. All around him seemed like a glorified empty cube specially designed to contain him inside.

The door opened. As rarely ever in his life, he felt real dread.In the state he was in, it would have been challenging to defend himself. He sighed in relief when he saw Loreto Clair entering. She brought with her a tray filled with pots of fruits, vegetables, nuts,cereals, rice and more water. She left it at his side on the floor.The Prince took one of the pots and devoured it. The juice and sweetness of apples, strawberries, pears and oranges stabbed his jaw and watered his mouth for more. At the corner of his eye he saw Loreto Clair sitting on the floor by his left side. She watched him in silence. He knew the image he projected. Elves were a well kept secret, protected by the human elites of all times. Only the chosen ones and those who amassed the world power in their hands knew of the existence of Bethmoora and the surviving elves of the Great War. Some even knew about him, Prince Nuada exiled by his own conviction and wandering the human empires between the shadows. A mythical legend like many other civilizations who vanished into grains of sands of the universal watch.

"Somewhere in here my silver lance ought to be," he said with full mouth and the fruit juice running out of the corners of his mouth and down his neck and chest, "yet I only see walls, floor and flat roof. Search some secret compartment. I know it's here."

Without uttering a word against him, the human stood up and obeyed. He didn't know whether she felt guilty or she immediately accepted his authority unconsciously. He saw her feeling the walls with her hands as if wanting to perceive the tiniest protuberance through her fingertips. The Prince took another pot filled with almonds, walnuts, cucumbers and bell peppers and ate away while he took portions of steaming jasmine rice with a spoon. Slowly but surely his core began warming up after weeks deprived of any food or drink. He focused his gaze on Loreto Clair, slowly his eyes stopped burning, his skin was turning more resistant to touch. Suddenly he spotted the human stretching tall on her toes to reach a higher spot on the wall she insisted on touching. She turned and faced him. Could it be possible? Loreto Clair studied the structure to which he was chained and operated some grid or lever at its backside, releasing a click. She moved it to a horizontal position. The human smiled and searched for his approval. She climbed and tried to reach that spot on the highest end of the wall. She pressed the area on the wall and like magic a small door opened. The Prince opened his eyes in surprise. Loreto Clair rummaged inside, stretched at her maximum capacity and produced his silver lance. She turned to him and questioned him with her eyes. Open-mouthed, he nodded and slightly smirked. To his surprise, that was not the only thing stored in the secret compartment. Loreto Clair produced his sword and coat and left them on the structure.

The Prince devoured the rest of the food on the tray at full speed. He drank down the other water bottle and attempted to stand upon his own one more time. The energy was again slowly flowing through his veins, yet it was still challenging to stand on his feet. He offered a hand to Loreto Clair and helped her to come down from the structure. Once standing face to face, he realized how small she was.How could she sing so low and loud as she did with such a tiny body like hers? This was not the moment nor the place to ask about her singing technique. Quickly he dressed his coat, adjusted the blood-red belt to his waist, the protections to his chest and forearms and wore the lance and sword on his back. He opened his way before the human and opened the door. She grabbed him by his arm. He turned and faced her, frowning.

"Are you sure you feel well and recovered?," she said with a worried gaze.

"Enough for a few surprise attacks. I'm not planning to fight," he said and advanced towards the control cabin. "You will always stay at my back. Never cross fire, they'll shoot to kill. You must come with me, for when they know you have freed me they'll hunt you down too."

Loreto Clair nodded in silence. There was dread in her eyes. She clung to his arm behind him. He opened the door and checked both ends of the hallway. They went out and in silence the human pointed towards which direction to walk. After almost an entire month, he was leaving that torture chamber. Insolent humans who had dared taking him prisoner without thinking of the consequences. Rage boiled in his core, right there where his chest protection did not cover. They would pay with blood for the insult of having captured and tortured Nuada, Silverlance, Prince and future king of the elves.

  
  



	12. Chapter 12

The strike was certain and quick like lightning. The guard had no chance to even turn to face the Prince. Loreto did not know how he knocked him down with his lance without shedding a single drop of blood. The agent fell down like a tower. She advanced stuck to his arm and the wall. Her heart was beating at full speed in her chest.Judging for what she had seen in the last weeks, guards filled and surrounded this place day and night. The Prince steps were silent on the floor, he slid the feet without creating the slightest noise.Every one of his movements seemed carefully calculated. Loreto tried to imitate him. She controlled her breathing and sharpened her hearing to the maximum. Suddenly, the Prince pointed forward. They had to cross the aisle and turn to the left. He held his lance in his right hand, pointing to the floor; the sword hooked to his back and his left hand against Loreto's stomach at his back protecting her. She had but the slightest idea how he oriented himself to know where the exit was, yet she followed without questioning. Afar, two guards watched the gate's access. He stopped at his traces behind a closed corner. His breath was controlled, barely audible. He was at least two meters tall. Before her the Prince was a fortress impossible to ignore or dodge. Without words and in a single movement he pressed Loreto by her core against the wall, turned and pinned her with his gaze millimeters away from her face. She swallowed hard and gasped deep at his sudden proximity. Stunned and unable to move, she saw into his light yellow pupils. _Stay here regardless of what happens,_ she heard in her head. Had she imagined it? Next, she saw him running with wide strides towards both guards. The men drew their weapons and shot the Prince. Her heart skipped a beat. The Prince dodged the bullets running at full speed and stretched his lance forwards making it grow triple its length. What followed was a carnage at the speed of light. He ran towards the left wall and jumped in such a way as to land in between both men and with two turning motions of his lance the agents were history bleeding on the floor. The Prince pointed at her and called her to him. She was completely paralyzed. She shook from head to toes. When he saw she was still standing behind the corner, it was he who approached. He arrived before her, invading her with his presence. He placed his open hand on her chest and with his free index he crossed his lips,ordering her to stay quiet. Only then Loreto was conscious how loud and out of control her heartbeats were bumping against her chest. She attempted to control her agitated breathing. Slowly she calmed herself barely enough to continue.

They advanced through the gate and found another maze of hallways.Somewhere in the background they suddenly heard hurried steps. They were getting closer. The Prince took her hand and, without turning around, began to run. The steps crushed clearer on the metal floor.They were stepping on their heels. They turned a corner to the right.At the end they spotted another gate. Loreto begged the heavens for that gate to be the exit to the outdoors. Suddenly she realized she did not know what time of day it was. And what if out there the sun was still shining bright in the sky? Her heart shrunk in terror at the mere idea of hurting the Prince once again. Suddenly, from the left, someone grabbed her. She let go of the Prince's hand, who immediately turned and froze his steps when he saw the situation. An agent had immobilized her by the neck with his arm strangling her and placed the cold cannon of his handgun against her temple. A chill wave overwhelmed her and dread nested in the pit of her stomach. This would be her end. Loreto was not made for this kind of thing. She was a musician, not a soldier. It had been a terrible idea to escape this place that was strongly surveilled by armed guards. Tears flooded her eyes.

"It's over, Nuada," the man said at her back with a calm yet strong tone.

Loreto heard the steps of other men approaching. She saw red laser dots pointing to the Prince's chest and head. She met his gaze. If elves truly were magical creatures and could read minds, Loreto begged him for forgiveness one more time. In silence. To his eyes. For an instant she believed to have heard him say he held no grudge against her. Or maybe it was the stratospheric levels of adrenaline and cortisone making her hallucinate. She didn't quite understand well what occurred and what the Prince did next. He jumped,propelling himself more than a meter above the floor, and in the process he drew his sword from his back. The agents opened fire.Next, he spun both weapons like helicopter blades before him creating an impenetrable shield against bullets which when hitting against its edges, flew propelled at blast speed in all directions. The impact of one such projectiles in her left arm burned her skin. It was sudden. Seconds later, the pain hit her. Loreto let out a scream at the top of her lungs while panic was gaining over her mind. The open flesh burned, the heat of her blood wet her cardigan and arm dripping from her fingertips. The Prince immediately noticed and met her gaze filled with adrenaline. He landed behind her at enough distance to slide the throat of the agent holding her prisoner. Loreto remained frozen at the image of the bleeding headless body collapsing at her side. The Prince spun his weapons and impulsed himself against the walls to jump above the other guards and in a matter of a few brushes of his sword and lance's cutting edges he slid their arms and necks knocking them down. The aisle returned to silence. Blood covered the surface, reaching her white sneakers. The Prince arrived at her side and uttering no words he checked her wound. Loreto shook all over.The bullet wound in her arm by the biceps burned and tore her flesh. Loreto lost balance, and the world switched off in darkness. The Prince grabbed her firmly in his arm and they went out through the gate.

Loreto's prayers had been heard. The night had already arrived.The building was massive and as a mansion or fortress erected from the top of a hill. All the perimeter surrounding it was enclosed in tall gates. They carried on towards the front exit.

"Brother!," they heard at their backs coming from the building.

They both turned around. The Prince gasped with difficulty to the image of his sister running towards him. A few meters away from her were Agents Hellboy, Sherman and Sapien. Why weren't they trying to stop them like the black-suited agents had done earlier? The Princess arrived before him, gasping for air. Her amber gaze was broken. They looked into each other's eyes. They seemed like both sides of the same coin. The Prince grabbed her by the nape and forced her to face him. Agent Sapien attempted to run to her aid, yet Agent Hellboy closed his way with his enormous stone hand. This concerned only the twins and nobody had the right to interfere.

"This is not over," he uttered low in between his teeth. "You left me at the mercy of torturers! To your own brother!," his voice broke.

The Princess sobbed. She said something in a language unknown to Loreto, yet her words vanished in her uncontrollable sobbing.

"I will find you and I will come back for the last piece of the crown. You know it. Now, if there's still some love in your heart for your brother, let me go," the Prince mumbled with difficulty.

They leaned against each other's foreheads and remained like that for seconds long. Nobody else existed but the two of them. Everything around them stopped turning. They sobbed in silence. The Prince let go of her nape with a rough motion and walked away from her. He pointed at the special agents with his silver lance and hugged Loreto by the waist against him. The bullet embedded in her arm was opening its way through her muscles with such heat, making her feel feverish.Her head was turning like a spinning wheel out of control. Agent Hellboy pressed the button and the big gate began to slowly retract.She felt herself lifting off the floor; the Prince took her in his arms and turning around; he walked into the night.

  
  



	13. Chapter 13

"No human has entered here before. This is an exception," the Prince said with his gaze fixed ahead.

The place was an abandoned warehouse near the Brooklyn bridge in New York. Only meters away, at their backs, the city continued its life in all normality. She didn't know exactly what time it was, but the night smelled like the wee hours, judging by the freezing fall breeze piercing the bones. The freshness relieved some of the pulsing, burning pain in her left arm. The heat of the bullet buried in her flesh had spread to her entire limb and part of her shoulder and chest. Her head still floating light like a feather, Loreto leaned against the wall and slowly she lost strength, sliding down until she landed on the cold concrete floor. The Prince hastened activating the complex grids, valves and locks of the massive round door which as a bank vault yielded opening up against cramps and metallic roars. He bent down and took her in his arms again.

As soon as they crossed the threshold, she noticed a powerful sewers stench tangled in a mixture of fried noodles, fish and incense. A dissonant and strangely festive melody barely sounded from a hurdy-gurdy creature above the collective jabber. She lifted her head with difficulty and open-mouthed observed the panorama. A sea of creatures and monsters of all colors and shapes transited through narrow paths in what appeared to be a big paranormal bazaar. From high above, light shone like gas lamps or light bulbs blinking about to switch off. Buildings piled upwards in full anarchy along the walls, creating tiny nooks like small shelters. The Prince opened his way in between the strange inhabitants with her in his arms. They advanced among beings worth it nightmares and tales mumbling weird noises. An ocean of wires hung from the roof, television sets in static stations, radiators, and air conditioner systems. All piled up like a technological dumpster of the city. Some monsters commuting seemed to negotiate about product prices while many of the creatures tending the stands were piling up boxes, cutting fish heads, tidying up and cutting pieces of fabric, leather, and human skins, or shaving clients. In horror she spotted at her right two giant rolls with spikes like an imminent mortal trap turning against each other's direction. A being casually inserted enormous pieces of meat and animal parts in its center. Suddenly she felt something walking on her knee. As she saw what it was, she shook in panic and the creature flew away. There were hundreds of them flying above their heads. They seemed like a cross between a praying mantis and a huge wasp. This was a market, a door to another world, an unknown one, banned for humans. Did these creatures live side-by-side with humans beneath New York this entire time? They stared at her in skepticism, yet not so to the Prince. As the shop owners noticed his presence, they moved out of his way and one by one bowed at him.

After what seemed like a good thirty minutes walking and descending into the guts of New York, the Prince stopped and only then he faced her for the first time in his arms.

"Here begins my private dwelling," he said and walked under tall foundations like a threshold.

The place seemed like an enormous cave of endless dimensions. The living rock of the walls and coal-black roof tangled with the underground foundations of New York. Cobblestones grouped in circular design covered the floor. In its center, the water puddled, hiding under its reflection bits of the floor. High above, a sort of skylight looked at the starry sky. Through the surface above, arrived the weak city roar of cars and people unaware of the secret world beneath their feet. The first thing that caught her attention was the great open coal kitchen like a chimney which illuminated part of the lower level with its warm halo. Directly at each side there were two surfaces filled with pots and dishes, bottles, all kinds of tableware, knives and glass jars of disproportionate sizes. A piece of wall exhibited a carved design of superb details which did not match with the surroundings. It looked as if it had been taken from a palace and brought there to the sewers. Suddenly at her left the flash, sound impact of an underground train going at full speed made Loreto jump in fear. The Prince hugged her tight against him, with her still in his arms. He advanced under the stone stairs towards an area above the previous one. A group of lamps, which looked like crystal bowls upside down, generously illuminated this section. Long bits of hay covered the cobblestones. This part seemed to be away from the train line view. A thick golden curtain and other ones of apparent black tulle separated from the lower level and served as a frame for a bed with fat cushions and comforters of shiny orange and gold fabric. A lonely armchair found itself vacant before a small fireplace and at its left, a great rectangular dark wooden table and six chairs formed a dining area placed in one of the corners.

The Prince carried her through nooks and under foundations for a few minutes more until they reached their destination. Loreto was once again dumbfounded. The air was fresh and aromatic to breathe and came from a concentrated spot of trees and bushes fighting for organic soil just below the narrow skylight. An underground forest?The Prince greeted the slender beings who approached them. They shared similarities with his facial features and those of his sister the Princess, yet these looked somewhat older and were exceptionally tall. Their faces had scars or rosy wounds and a scarce bunch of white, long hairs that rather looked like feather threads.

"This human had just rescued your Prince from torture and a dishonored death," the Prince said with a strong voice still carrying her in his arms. "As you can see, she was wounded in the process. We both require immediate healing."

One of the beings took Loreto in his arms with no effort and carried her into another chamber. As soon as the Prince let her go, he collapsed on the floor. Her heart skipped a beat. Loreto tried to run to his aid, but the pain her left arm radiated was such that she was almost paralyzed. She feared the amount of blood she had lost was too much. She watched the other tall beings help the Prince stand up and hold him by his waist to assist him walking behind her.

They were elves and much older than the Prince, Loreto concluded for herself while laying on the platform like a hospital bed as she watched them prepare unknown infusions and concoctions. The Prince laid on a similar surface at her left. He looked directly at the rock roof and foundations high above as if lost in his thoughts. How had she ended up there, meters and meters underground with a bullet wound in her arm and among beings and monsters of another world? One elf arrived at her side and carefully he cut the fabric of her cardigan and T-shirt with golden scissors. The blood had dried and stuck the clothing to her skin. Another approached and began pouring lukewarm water on her arm to wash her skin. They freed the area of the wound.It felt feverish to the touch; she knew it as soon as the fragile and long hands of the elves made contact with her skin. From the corner of her eye she noticed the Prince sitting on the platform and receiving a long and narrow jar filled with a green liquid. He drank it all in one sip and immediately another elf gave him a water drop-shaped glass with a thick red and yellowish liquid. The Prince drank the whole of the content.

One elf began reciting words in a strange language and elevated his bony hand of long fingers above her head.

"Stop!," the Prince ordered from her left.

The elf obeyed on the spot.

"She's human, you must inform her what you will do to her. She doesn't know our medicine," he said. "Loreto," he caught her attention, she turned her head to the left, still half dazzled, "my druid will hypnotize you with a spell so you lose consciousness and don't feel pain when they extract the bullet from your arm."

Loreto went blank. She attempted to stand up from the platform,but she soon regretted it. Her strengths were abandoning her. The Prince rose and with effort went to her side. He took her right hand and placed his other one with his open palm against her. He looked into her eyes.

_You are safe here. Your wound is my fault. We won't hurt you. When you wake up all pain will have gone._

She searched into his gaze. She rummaged into his iris of abysmal black framed in gold. Had that been his voice in her mind? The Prince nodded and drew a weak smile. The pain of his own torture was still written on his features. He had carried her in his arms all the way from the agency to the sewers. The road had been a hard one. They called a taxi; the driver took them for a few blocks until he broke in panic when he saw all the blood Loreto was losing. He studied the Prince through the rear view mirror with horror in his features and threw them out of the vehicle. Three taxis later with the same luck they finally arrived at the Brooklyn bridge in New York. Some three hours of laborious and rough trip which drained the energy of both of them. Both badly wounded, exhausted and hungry.

_Trust in my druids. A moment of deep sleep and your wound will heal._

Loreto barely nodded. She closed her eyes. The druid recited the spell in an ancestral language. And the last piece of consciousness drained away from her, elevating her above the flesh, the world and the light.

  
  



	14. Chapter 14

Loreto trembled as the moist and freezing air from the meters underground crept into her bones. Her feet and hands were frozen. She woke up and immediately she was surprised at how soft the surface where she laid was. She rose enough to study her surroundings. This was not like the chamber of the Elven druids with the dense underground forest. She was on a bed of cloudy comforters and pillows. The halo of a fireplace at her right reached her with a soft breeze of the flames crackling. She attempted to move her left arm.She was wearing a shroud or light-colored chemise. She ventured to palpate the area where the bullet had impacted. She opened her eye sin disbelief and forced herself to sit at the border of the bed. By the firelight and the gas lamps arranged on the foundations walls and rocks, she carefully studied her left biceps. Where the bullet had entered her flesh, there was now a barely small scar like a dot. Like the mark of a vaccine. How was this even possible? She attempted to move her arm, slowly and carefully at first, then she shook it with all her strength. Nothing, the pain had disappeared completely. Elven magic? What had they done to her?!

She got up from bed and wrapped herself in the thick woolen blanket resting at its feet. She began walking without knowing well where she was heading to. Soon the smell of spices and grilled vegetables attracted her like a spell. She arrived at the area above where the metro train ran.

"The human will stay for a few days, you will take care of her and tend to her every need."

It was the strong and deep voice of Prince Nuada. She approached and from between the golden and black curtains, she spotted in the lower level her host speaking with an elf who in that moment was taking a dramatic bow before him. Next, the elf focused on the coal kitchen, opened the lid of a pan and stirred the content with a long metal spoon. Other two elves appeared from the darkness and joined the female elf in the preparation. Loreto scanned the surroundings. It seemed like a parlor to eat and sleep. A narrow bed of similar cushioned blankets like hers cornered against the curtains with the head pointing to the lower level. How much time had she been in this place and under the spell of the Elven druids? She neared the fireplace and took a deep breath. Whatever the elf was cooking smelled delicious.

"You woke up."

Loreto jumped. Turned around abruptly and found the Prince facing her at her back. He grinned at the corner of his black mouth.

"How do you feel?," he asked and approached her left arm.

Loreto took a step backwards. At such a scant distance and face to face, his presence exuded an authoritarianism and impetuosity impossible to ignore.

"I'm fine," she whispered and lowered her head, suddenly shy. She gathered courage to face him. She stretched her neck to the roof. "How long was I unconscious? What did they do to me?," she asked dazzled and uncovered her left arm. The coldness of the sewers quickly gave her goosebumps. "The bullet wound is not there anymore, how is this possible?"

The Prince smiled with empathy. He gestured towards the table. Dubious, Loreto followed him. He sat at the head of the table, and from the darkness emerged an elf and removed the chair at his right for her. Loreto thanked him in a whisper.

"Elven medicine is the power of nature. My druids dedicate their lives to the study and development of its healing properties."

His voice sounded calmed, as if he had awaited her questions.

"An entire day. Twenty-four hours. Yesterday we arrived close to midnight from the agency."

Loreto opened her eyes. After two weeks in a coma and now an entire day under the magical Elven spell, life was draining through her fingers in others' hands, playing with her consciousness like a lab rat. Nevertheless, both procedures had been for her own good. Two elves began laying dishes, tableware and glasses on the table. The elf with whom the Prince had spoken appeared carrying a pot with a golden finish and placed it in the center. The other elves carried a couple of bowls and serving dishes and left them on the table. The four servant elves took a bow and retired to the lower level. Loreto cleared her throat.

"And you? Have your wounds healed?"

She felt stupid even asking for something she herself had direct responsibility for. She had cooperated to capture him. They had tortured him for almost a complete month. Day and night, chained to an execution bed. No food, no water, no rest and in constant pain. What did they want from him? What had he done to deserve such punishment?

The Prince looked her deeply in the eyes. She remembered having listened to his voice in her mind seconds before losing consciousness. Still pinned to her gaze, he raised his left hand and with a slight gesture he commanded an elf to pour a red beverage in both glasses. He dismissed him with equal ease. He was used to giving orders. He had been born and raised to rule and lead. Loreto supposed he didn't know another world nor form of life. Only then sitting at his right she realized the Prince was wearing a different outfit than the previous day. This one was white with applications in gold and red. This coat had no protection on his chest nor forearms like the black one he wore as they left the agency. Now he was at home and among his people. On his chest the same symbol of his belt was embroidered in golden threads. The circle enclosed a tree with its roots, log and branches. He noticed her studying the details. Loreto colored strongly and felt back on her chair.

"Aiglin, the father tree," he uttered with solemnity. "It's the coat of arms of the kingdom of Bethmoora," he explained and touched the embroidered detail with the tree in the middle.

The smell of stews and steamy side dishes whetted her appetite, making her mouth water and stomach grumble. She was starving like she hasn't been in weeks. The Prince gestured to the table, and suddenly she became inhibited about abusing his hospitality. Everything looked delicious. Not a trace of meat, fish, eggs or dairy. It was all vegetables, seeds, nuts, cereals and roots. Loreto took her dish and served a bit of everything, not knowing what to expect. Only then the Prince served a plate for himself. She waited for him to begin to eat first, to do so herself. He was a prince! His education was to be extent and rich as also must have been his knowledge. For him, Loreto was to be even lesser than a commoner. She was a mortal human way below his race. It took her significant effort to take that idea out of her head and relax. She pinched a few steamed vegetables stewed in herbs judging by its aroma and ate them. The explosion of flavor took her by surprise. She chewed her heart content and loaded her fork with more vegetables with gusto.

"Loreto," the Prince called and drank a quick sip of his glass. He adjusted himself on the chair and faced her at his right, "you ought to know elves can read minds," he said and looked away with a sarcastic grin drawn on his black lips.

The beet red took possession of her cheeks and chest, making her feel feverish. She noticed him watching her piercingly. She could not meet his gaze. To be in his presence at such a scant distance was overwhelming. She drank from her glass and to her surprise she liked what she tasted. It tasted like grape juice and it was alcohol-free.The Prince returned his attention to his plate.

"You can relax in my home. If you weren't welcome, you wouldn't be here. What you did for me yesterday I shall never forget. I am in your debt. You saved my life. From this day forth you are my friend and Bethmoora's," he said and clinked his glass with hers.

Loreto replied to the gesture mechanically. She saw herself from above. Her family, friends, producer, record label, agent and fans were still wondering themselves up there on the surface where the hell she was. The flash memory of the newspaper cover came to her mind. The previous night, sitting in one of the taxis they took from Connecticut, where her mobile's GPS had shown the agency's location, she saw a bunch of newspapers piled up against a corner awaiting the following morning's distribution. Its headliner read in red capitals _**Where is Loreto Clair?**_ next to a photo of her. That of a gaunt face and extreme thinness was she. Only now she realized how sick she had been. Maybe they had already declared her deceased. She was missing for a month leaving no trail. The agency was a secret entity and therefore her diagnosis and surgery wouldn't be made public as neither would the operation to capture the Prince in which she had been key. _Metastasis._ The word returned to her consciousness like a death innuendo awaiting her at the end of the road. She loaded her fork with tasty potato cubes in rosemary and small pearl onions in caramel. At her left she saw the Prince eating, focused on his plate. Loreto drank another sip of grape juice and cleared her throat.

"If you can read my mind then you must know how much I regret having taken part in the operation to take you prisoner," she said in one flow of air. "I didn't know what they were planning to do with Your Highness and above all things, I never imagined they'd torture you so cruelly. When I saw you chained to that execution bed..." Loreto swallowed hard and fought against the knot in her throat.

"It's not the first time humans have captured me," he said with a soft tone. "You need not address me as Your Highness. You're not an elf, I'm not your prince. You may call me Nuada."

Loreto questioned him with her eyes. Under the light of dozens of candles and mild halo lamps, his long straight bleached hairs looked more blond and his marble skin, warm like brushed by the sun. She noticed his hair tips were of a more intense blond color than the rest. He and his people did not remember the sun kiss. The source of energy and life had become poison for them. Such realization made her see him in a new light. She contemplated her surroundings and considered what was life underground for the elves and for him. He was a prince without a kingdom or a palace. A prince without a complete crown.

"Why did they want to hunt you down? What have you done and what do you plan to do for them to torture you and capture you in such away? What did they intend? To have you there for the rest of your life?"

Nuada grumbled a laugh which left the air loaded with irony.

"They could have easily done so. The German tin man hasn't got a body to age him and I am immortal. We could have been in that relationship for centuries to come," he said with such coldness in his voice to freeze her bones.

"Are you immortal?"

"Unless I'm deadly wounded, yes," he said and drank from his glass. He took his dish and served another round of each of the stews. "Elves age very slowly, our biology differs from yours. The day shall come when I meet my equal in the battlefield and he shall be my executioner and liberator. It's my destiny. For that reason yesterday you did not only free me but also you restored my honor," he adjusted on his chair and fixed his gaze on hers. "I shall die one day by the mortal stab of a worthy opponent, yet not without being able to defend myself and at the mercy of lower schemes such as torture."

Loreto swallowed through her tight throat and allowed herself to dive in the depths of his amber eyes. How old was this being exactly? How much history had he witnessed? How much wisdom did he possess? How many lives had he already lived?

"More than I can remember," he answered. "Your thoughts scream louder than you realize," he said amused and continued eating from his dish.

Loreto shook her head, smiling, and ignored the heat coloring her cheeks again.

"You could stop fighting then," she offered with doubt in her voice.

"When life is survival, one cannot give up the fight. When you want to live instead of survive, you have to fight."

  
  



	15. Chapter 15

_Why did they want to hunt you down? What have you done and what do you plan to do for them to torture you and capture you in such away?_

"I must recover our birthright for the elves and all magical creatures of Bethmoora. I must claim the surface of the Earth and return to it like it was always our destiny. It's not just a matter of honor and justice, it's about our health. Our druids sacrifice themselves every day exposing their skins to small doses of sun rays to tend to the minuscule forest we've been able to plant here underground where daylight filters enough through the skylight to reach our trees, plants and flowers. This is all the flora we have left on which our potions, ointments and cures depend. Humans have destroyed the forests, oceans and air in their infinite effort to produce more factories and industries and pollute the world with useless material objects. The planet dies slowly and we die with it."

The Prince brought the golden spoon loaded with peas and caramel carrots in rosemary and oregano to his mouth. He chewed calmly and tried to control his agitated breathing. Rage was burning his chest once more, boiling in his veins and swelling his aorta artery with an insatiable thirst for vengeance. From the corner of his eyes, he noticed Loreto's shaken face. She hadn't touched her plate in minutes. She watched him closely, like a hellish mutant creature. He cleaned his mouth with the cloth napkin resting on his lap, drank a sip from his glass and faced her.

"We're gradually fading away. We weren't conceived for underground life. Thousands of years underground has forced our organisms to adapt to these surroundings," he gestured around before Loreto's astonished look. "Exterminating all humans is the only solution. We need space and time to slowly expose ourselves to the sun and heal. This," he pointed at his face, "is not our original form. This is the result of eons underground."

Loreto exhaled a sigh, revealing her shock. She sat still with her forearms resting at each side of her plate, her food growing cold. Her jaw out of place, her gaze gone into a random spot in the air. Pale. The Prince would never cease to surprise himself at how ignorant common humans were, those who didn't occupy a position of power in their societies, to the irreversible consequence of their actions. They may not have been directly responsible for the policies which caused the planet to cry for help, yet they were accomplices to take part in economies of massive consumption of which they were both slaves and gears.

"Is it true you killed your father?," she suddenly said in a thin thread of faltering voice. She slowly turned her pupils towards him until she met his gaze.

She was shaking. The Prince could listen to her thoughts loud and clear. There was no evil in her heart, she was an open book hence so was her mind. And in that moment there was only one emotion in Loreto Clair. Dread. He had to suppress the guilt for scaring her in such away and the urgency to assure her she would result unharmed from everything. He wouldn't have the heart to exterminate her, especially after what she had done for him. She was tiny and fragile, yet her spirit was giant. She had shown courage and nobility in acknowledging her mistake and helping him escape the agency's torture prison.

"I had to," the Prince said with his gaze fixed in front. "His weakness was to blame for having condemned us to our current situation. I defended myself from his guards when he gave the order to kill me and, by extension, my sister. It was him or us."

Loreto swallowed hard. The little color in her face abandoned her.She coughed in her fist and cleared her throat.

"And what if there was another way out? A month ago I didn't know about the existence of magical creatures, let alone of elves living side by side with us in this world. What if you introduce yourself to the world as the Prince of Elves and negotiate a peaceful solution to your people? The entire world would be just as fascinated with you as I am, you'd have people's support if you explain the situation."

The Price chuckled and shook his head. He carried on eating in silence. Only someone as young and as naïve as Loreto Clair would believe a peaceful solution was possible to recover the lands which by right had always been Elven. His father had made a truce with humans with the promise they would keep to the forests for they'd remain in the cities. Humans could not keep their word of honor. Soon cities needed more and more land to grow and humans quickly forgot King Balor's truce, expelling the elves and forcing them to dig underground to survive. As always on the behalf of greed and ego. They fought because they didn't believe in the same god; they killed each other because an empire wanted to rule all others; they broke pacts as soon as a possibility of personal gain appeared. They were a race unable to live in harmony. They lacked a sense of community beyond languages, beliefs and geopolitical limits. Anything altered their fragile peace. Their empathy expanded only to the limit of their knowledge. And humans were the most ignorant beings on the planet.

"Common people are not monsters, you know?," Loreto continued and adjusted herself on the chair to face him. "We just want to be happy and achieve our goals and for that we have less than a hundred years of life. We're not immortals like you, our bodies are fragile and susceptible to diseases that can shorten our lives."

Her voice broke and fell silent. The Prince observed her, puzzled. Her hazel eyes submerged in a sea of tears. She touched her abdomen with her hands and lowered her head in a barely audible sob. She hastened to apologize and dried the corners of her eyes with the napkin on her lap. She drank a long sip from her glass and cleared her throat. Only then he remembered. The day of his capture, the Prince had gone to the theater after hearing the news about the cancellation of her concert due to health reasons. When he entered the aisle of the sixth floor and saw her unconscious on the floor, he feared the worst. He had taken her in his arms and called her name repeatedly. It was true, humans were too fragile. Loreto Clair was slowly dying. The Prince stretched his right hand towards her.

"May I?," he asked with his hand a few centimeters away from her head.

She only nodded, disconcerted.

The Prince levitated his right hand before her forehead and went down her face, neck, chest and stomach. He stopped there. He checked her approval and touched her abdomen through the chemise. He closed his eyes. He sensed a cellular change, a weak energy pulsing from her core, yet there was no trail of such radiation he had felt in Loreto as he took her in his arms in the theater.

"Do you have the same power as Agent Sapien?," Loreto asked, still motionless with her voice possessed by fear.

The Prince opened his eyes and looked at her, frowning.

"It was he who discovered the malignant tumor in my stomach. A team of doctors operated me in the agency and kept me in a coma for two weeks. Only when I woke up and walked again I found you, but by then they had already hurt badly."

The Prince brought his chair closer to hers. Loreto trembled at his sudden proximity. His right hand was still resting on her stomach. He looked into her eyes. _Do not fear me. I won't hurt you._ She tilted her head and tried to find confirmation in his eyes of what Nuada had just telepathically conveyed. Humans were absolutely disconnected from the higher plane of consciousness. They filled their brains with useless information, and consequently there was no space for contemplation. They lived their lives praising electronic devices specifically designed to keep them distracted and, except for a few, refused to connect to Mother Earth to ascend. He wasn't surprised to see her face breaking as she heard his voice in her head without uttering words. The Prince removed his hand from her abdomen. Her natural perfume was intoxicating him. A sweet warmth like an embrace mixed with a raw scent emanated from her skin. Quickly he took distance with his chair and stood up.

"You're healthy, I sense nothing," he sentenced and adjusted his coat.

Loreto stood up. He turned to her face to face. He had to bend his neck down to see her in the eyes. Her height reached his chest.

"If you wish, you can stay here all the time you want. Now I must leave you."

"Thank you for the invitation," Loreto whispered. "However, I'm afraid I have to go back home. I've been missing for a month and also...," she hugged her core, "I must have some medical exams done. It's not that I don't trust your powers or Agent Sapien's, but he even warned me the cancer may return and in that case, I won't be as lucky to count once again with the convenient help of magical creatures like yourselves or secret agencies with state-of-the-art medicine and technology departments."

Cancer. There were a few diseases in the world of humans more feared and despised than cancer. Elves didn't contaminate their bodies with chemically processed human products, nor did they breathe the toxic cloud above the metropolis. The biology of their organisms was a lot more complex than the human one, and so they could assimilate small quantities of toxicity from the modern world as long as they didn't mingle with them or with their lifestyle. That was one of the reasons they kept interactions with humans to a minimum. _We're not immortals like you, our bodies are fragile and susceptible to diseases that can shorten our lives._ Disproportionate development eager to advance in technology and make their lives even more comfortable and quicker was to blame for such a decrease in life expectancy. And Loreto Clair was yet another victim. If she left now, he may never see her again. He had to return to the agency for the last crown piece in Nuala's hands. He was certain his sister was also in possession of the map with the location of the Golden Army. His father, the King, never entrusted him with such a task. He always knew Nuada would challenge him eventually. With the Golden Army in his command, the massacre of humans would leave no survivors. He studied Loreto. He felt a pressing desire to hug her tight in his arms. He clenched his fists and tensed his body.

"I see," the Prince said and lost his gaze on the floor for a second. He refocused on her. "In that case, give me your hand," he said and stretched his right one with his open palm towards Loreto.

She blinked a few times and, dubious, placed her left hand against his.

Nuada closed his eyes.

_Clair was not her real surname, but an artistic one. Loreto Helena María Cranwell. Her mother was Mexican and her father, American. They both lived in Los Angeles. Single daughter. Thirty-five years old. Single. Fluent in Spanish and French. During her childhood and adolescence she had an Old English Shepherd called Wolfie in honor of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who died when she was fourteen. It happened while she was at school. When Loreto learned about it, she didn't leave her room for four full days, crying about his loss. She wanted to become a mother someday, yet the only time she had attempted it a good five years ago, she had a miscarriage causing her a depression that lasted an entire year. She didn't trust men, for she carried too many disappointments in her heart. She felt curiosity for him and the elves, but she was too ashamed to ask. She has played the piano since she was seven and sang since she was fifteen. She loved music above all else. Her best friend named Heather had recently passed away because of complications in labor of her first-born. She still felt the pain of her loss like it happened yesterday. And the mere idea of going through a chemotherapy paralyzed her of fear._

The Prince separated his hand from hers. It burned. Rarely had he ever read a human. He never took an interest in them. Until now. His core lined up with hers like that time from high above in the theater listening to her concert. He gave a step back.

"Before the war begins, I will search for you. Now that I know your energy I will be able to find you. You will find refuge here and bring your parents. It's all I can promise," he said and walked towards the exit.

"Prince!," Loreto called at his back.

He turned around.

"What's the first thing you'd like to do on the surface of the Earth on a sunny day?"

The sudden lump in his throat strangled him for a second. His gaze clouded in tears. He clenched his jaw. He remembered the frozen salty ocean breeze on his face and hair, the freshness of the sea at the coasts of Bethmoora giving him goosebumps, the strength of the waves swimming against them, the millions of sparkles reflected on the wave crests and the crystal face of sand grains.

"To swim in the sea again."


	16. Chapter 16

The impact woke up Nuala, making her spring out of bed. An explosion? She went out of her room, towards the aisle, tying her robe at the waist. The cloud of smoke prevented her from seeing details and immediately seeped into her eyes, making them burn. It smelled like fire. She covered her mouth and nose with the robe and, blind about the path ahead, she went on. She heard the voices of Agents Hellboy and Sherman screaming above the sudden rushed steps and loud commands by other agents approaching the area. She wasn't used to living among beings of other species let alone among humans, however this agency was the only thing that could protect her from Nuada. After a month in this facility, she still felt like a stranger in unknown territory. An outsider. The only one of her kind all around. Agents Hellboy, Sherman and Sapien shared a friendship and camaraderie to which she didn't belong. The only one with whom she could feel comfortable and be herself was with Agent Sapien. Abraham Sapien. Perhaps it was his soft tone of voice or his logical way of explaining things which managed to lessen, even temporarily, her constant anxiety. She continued walking, unable to distinguish the blurry shapes of agents in the thick cloud of smoke, when suddenly she ran into someone. It was Abraham. A blush burned her cheeks, and she thanked the smoke around for concealing it from him. He took her in his arms and escorted her towards the library. They were walking through the aisle when Nuala spotted a ball of fire approaching in their direction. Terrified, she moved out of the way, crushing with her back against the wall. She didn't believe her eyes when she recognized who it was. It was Agent Sherman. She walked wide traces wrapped in flames from head to toes the opposite direction.

"I cannot live like this, Red!," she screamed as she passed by.

Abraham tried to justify his friends' outburst to Nuala when they spotted Agent Hellboy running behind Liz. He was begging her to return to their private chamber. They were partners in life. Sometimes she envied the intimacy and mutual understanding they conveyed when, with no words, they leaned against each other, held hands or joked about things only the two of them understood. Now the situation was different.

"Liz, I promise you I'll clean the place. We can move to a bigger apartment here if you like! I'll give the cats in adoption. Whatever you want, just don't leave, babe."

Agent Hellboy walked before Nuala and Abraham and, distracted, he greeted them. They arrived at the library. Abraham closed the doors and instantaneously the outer mess stayed out of the place. Nuala sighed, exhausted.

"They will be fine," Abraham said and gestured to the big brown leather couch. "They're like that, they have ups and downs. Sometimes more downs than ups. Sometimes more explosions and laughs, but they will be fine."

The Princess smiled at his explanation and lowered her head. The Agent watched her with a tilted head and blinked a few times with the vertical membranes of his eyes. He stood up and said he'd order tea for two. Nuala simply smiled. Agent Sherman burst in the library still in flames and Agent Hellboy arrived a few seconds later still going after her.

"You don't understand. Nothing will be the same from now on, but you don't change, Red. You don't change," the agent said with a choking voice.

She closed her eyes and slowly the flames extinguished until they vanished completely. She let herself fall on the couch next to Nuala.This was her power then, Pyrokinesis. Agent Sherman could command fire at will. It was the first time she had witnessed it.

"What do you mean?," Agent Hellboy asked as he opened a can of beer and collapsed on the armchair in front of the couch.

Abraham launched a gaze at Nuala, pleading to forgive his friends for making her nervous and creating such a mess. She could mentally connect with him if she focused. It wasn't something that happened to her frequently, let alone with someone of another species. He arrived to her side and brought a chair closer to the couch at her left. Agent Sherman stood up and sat on the armchair's arm where Agent Hellboy was. She took his stone hand in her tiny ones.

"Red, I'm pregnant. You'll become a father."

Agent Hellboy's harsh features broke, and he turned into stone. His light yellow eyes were astonished. They looked at each other. He left the beer can on the floor and with his free hand he ventured to brush Agent Sherman's abdomen. He faced her.

"What?," he mumbled in a thin thread of voice. "Will I be a father?"

Agent Sherman nodded and uttered a smile. They merged into a tight embrace and sobbed in between laughs. At the corner of her eyes at her left, Nuala noticed Abraham watching his friends motionless.

"Did you hear that, Blue? I'll be a father! A tiny little devil!," Agent Hellboy cried out of joy and took his couple in his arms. She let out a scream as he lifted her from the couch into his arms and among laughter they left the library.

A man of the service staff entered pushing a wagon with a tray on which there was a teapot and two cups. Abraham poured both and took them to the couch. Nuala accepted hers in her hands and breathed in deeply the sweet aroma of Rooibos tea. She drank a sip and allowed the warmth going down her esophagus to soothe her.

"I knew it," Abraham suddenly said. "We were investigating the crime scene at Blackwood's auction house when by accident I touched Liz's abdomen. She must have more than a month of gestation. I'll become an uncle," he said with more surprise than emotion in his voice.

_The crime scene at Blackwood's auction house._ Nuada. How many lives had his thirst for war already claimed? Suddenly she remembered what Abraham had shared with her some weeks ago as her brother was still prisoner a few meters away from the library. Agent Krauss had explained his reason to torture him in such a way. The human government wished to acquire the complete crown of Bethmoora. The Princess never believed what supposedly motivated them to get it. It wasn't about neutralizing the imminent Elven threat, but possessing the Golden Army for themselves. It pained her to admit it, yet she had to agree with her brother. Human greed knew no limits. The crown of Bethmoora and all its attributions were and would always be Elven. Her father had died at the hands of Nuada, keeping the truce with humans. Nuala wouldn't allow the humans to snatch the last bastion of Elven culture. On the other hand, her brother could neither put his hands on it, nor on the map with the location of the Golden Army. There only seemed to be one solution.

"What are you thinking about? Do you wish me to escort you to your room?"

Nuala left her teacup on the coffee table and stretched her left hand with an open palm towards Abraham. He connected with his right one. Abraham blinked a few times. The Princess read from his mind the answer. _Liz._ Nuala opened her robe and placed her hands on her abdomen. Regardless of which outfit she wore, she always had the golden diamond-shaped corset on which contained the last piece of the crown. She took it out from its embedding and studied it.

_Nuala._

She shook all over like an earthquake wave. She fitted the piece back into her corset and closed her robe with clumsy, shaky hands. Abraham looked at her in distress.

"He's here," she mumbled, trembling. "My brother is here."

Abraham ran to the walk and pressed the emergency button. Immediately a loud alarm sounded, its persistent ringing from above deafening her. Seconds later a horde of armed black-suited human agents arrived at the library and at her back, Agents Hellboy, Sherman and Krauss. From the main aisle Nuala heard the agents fighting and wrestling with Nuada. She knew the sound his lance made when he spun it at full speed like a propeller. He was quick and lethal. The best and last Elven warrior. Abraham protected her with his own body. A few meters before her, Agent Hellboy was keeping the entrance as an obstacle impossible to dodge. Agent Sherman advanced towards her direction. She took place at her left and lit herself on fire. Nuada was getting closer, knocking down every single agent like mere pawns in a chessboard. At the corner of her eyes, Agent Krauss approached her.

"You can give the crown piece to me, Your Highness," he said in a marked German accent.

Nuala ignored him. She leaned closer to Abraham, squeezing his arm with both hands. He remained like a living shield before her. Nuada appeared under the library threshold. He spun his lance and putting it away under his arm he walked forwards fixed on her. Nuala swallowed hard. She tried with all her strengths to connect with him. _Brother, reconsider. Stop. Nobody wants the war. Neither you nor me. Take me home._ She received no answer. Agent Hellboy and Nuada faced each other in battle.

"Don't hurt the Prince, Red!," Abraham screamed. "You'll hurt the Princess, too!"

"I know, goddammit!," Agent Hellboy shouted back as he blocked with his stone hand every attempt of Nuada to stab him.

Her brother knocked down Agent Hellboy to the floor. He immobilized him with the sharp tip of his silver lance pinching his throat.

"Will you give me the crown piece?," he spoke for the first time and looked directly into her eyes.

Nuala shook her head, unable to control the tremble of her body. Agent Hellboy beat the lance by its shaft away from his neck and impulsed himself to stand up. Nuada attacked, this time he jumped above the agent and with the back part of his lance he hit him on the back hard enough to knock him down one more time against the floor. He landed on him and placed the lance's blade edge against his neck once again.

"The piece, Nuala."

The Princess looked discretely to her left. _Elizabeth._ Agent Sherman answered her call and gave a small step towards her. Nuala opened her robe and took out the crown piece out of her corset. She presented it before her.

"Your Highness, no!," Abraham and Agent Krauss shouted at the same time.

Nuada still had Agent Hellboy reduced to the floor under the edge of his lance. His amber eyes shone as he saw the piece. In a single quick movement Nuala extended the piece towards Agent Sherman at her left. She took it in her hands burning in the fire. Bravely, the Princess endured the flames burning the skin of her hand. Nuada felt it too in his.

"NO!," Nuada screamed and hurtled to Agent Sherman.

It was too late. The piece's pure gold melted in her hands. The golden drops landed on the carpet floor. Nuada leaped on Nuala out of his senses, but Agent Sherman closed his path like a burning barricade. Nuala gave one step backwards. The fire's blazing heat began to make her dizzy. She lost balance. Abraham caught her in his arms. Agent Hellboy stood up.

"It's over, Your _Assness,"_ the agent said at Nuada's back."Now if you want to exterminate the humans, you'll have to do it with your own hands and send to war the few Elven warriors you still have left. You'll send them on a suicidal mission and will end up extinguishing your race."

The agency's director, the human Tom Manning, appeared at the library door and, disoriented, he watched the situation with a puzzled demeanor. When he saw Nuada, he shouted the order to his agents to catch him.

"Let him go, Manning," Agent Sherman said still before Nuala like a shield on fire, "he has nothing to threaten us with anymore."

_You'll pay a high price for this treason, sister. Not only have you betrayed your brother, but also your future king and your people._

Nuada left in silence. The black-suited human agents opened the way, yet they still pointed their weapons at him until they saw him leaving the premises.

The Princess recovered her composure. She supported herself on Abraham to stand up straight on her feet. He congratulated her on her performance. All eyes were on her. She opened her way and arrived before Agent Krauss.

"You tortured my brother, and by extension me, pursuing a crown which wasn't completely in his possession," she said with a stern tone. The agent let out steam through his mechanical gills. "Once you were a human yet despite your current form, the greed of your kind hasn't left you. The crown of Bethmoora is and will always be Elven. Complete or not. My father died honoring the truce with humans and now I've just destroyed the crown of my people to protect Humanity like he did. It will cost me exile by my own kind and the eternal despise of my brother, my only family."

Agent Krauss uttered a verbiage why the government of the United States wanted to possess the key to awaken the Golden Army at any cost. Nothing mattered anymore. The only and most effective defense arm of the elves would forever remain dormant, for the crown could never be completed to awaken them. A piece forged out of magic globin gold thousands of years ago, entrusted by her father in her hands to protect it with her life, had melted in a matter of seconds. With no complete crown, the throne of Bethmoora would forever remain vacant, for Nuada couldn't take an oath on a crown whose key piece was no more. The kingdom would collapse. The fragile and millenary legacy of the elves began fading like the wind blows the grains of sand, leaving nothing behind. With this act, the Princess knew from that day forth she'd become landless. The doors of Bethmoora would never open for her again.

  
  



	17. Chapter 17

The great variety of theories trying to explain the disappearance of Loreto Clair went from being logical and sensible, regarding the questionable state of her health, to all sort of sensationalism, speculating she had committed suicide or that she was in a rehab clinic for drug addicts and that her record label was covering up the truth. Luckily, none of them referred to the B.P.R.D. nor to her cancer. Everything had happened too fast. If Loreto had gone on time to the doctor and they'd had detected the malignant tumor in her stomach through exams, she'd have lived the inevitable psychological shock the disease brings with it like all patients. She'd have spoken with her parents, they would have cried together and she would have committed herself in a clinic to poison her body with chemotherapy for all the time necessary. The symptoms had always been there, yet neither she nor anyone around her saw them or wanted to mention them. Loreto was one of the record label's most sold artists. Tickets for her concerts sold out in a matter of minutes, her agenda was programmed for years to come. Tours, video clips for each of the albums' singles, interviews, photo sessions, studio recording sessions, miscellaneous participations in television programs, charity events, releases and attendance to fellow musicians' parties. That's how it was for the past ten years. At the beginning, when she was yet another indie songwriter playing in bars, small theaters and hotel foyers, she had difficulties making ends meet and had to arrange everything herself, however she had more time. She used to go out with Heather, they had movie evenings, she had a boyfriend, she visited her parents. She even weighed a couple of more kilos! Everything exploded with _**My Truth**_ from her third studio album. The journey from then on was a never ending nosedive slide from the tallest sledge. There was no way of stopping. One month missing had been enough to feed magazines, newspapers and blogs with conspiratorial theories.

After the conversation with Prince Nuada, Loreto had no other option but to see him walking away disappearing from his dwelling. She had stayed on her own in a strange place meters underground among magical creatures who spoke unknown languages and who could kill her effortlessly. The kind elf servant who had cooked the delicious and comforting dinner insisted she rested even for a few more hours to recover some sleep and whenever Loreto would wish to return to the surface, she would escort her personally to the exit. And that's how it happened. She didn't know for how long she slept; it was impossible to know without daylight or windows. They appeared at the vault-like gate at the other side of the abandoned warehouse near the Brooklyn bridge. The elf stayed at the other side, for the sun was already rising. She retracted herself as soon as she noticed the weak sun rays reach her pale skin. The door closed, and the elf disappeared behind it like one of the many magical inhabitants of the underground world. If she told about it, no one would believe her. A few steps into the street, pedestrians pointed at her and filmed her with cell phones like an army of amateur Paparazzi. She walked until she caught a free taxi and quickly took it, escaping some bystanders who insisted on asking her where she had been and whether she was all right. The taxi driver also stared at her as if she was a zombie just woken up from the grave. Loreto only uttered her address and made sure to triple his fee, trying to buy the man's silence about her and her whereabouts.

She arrived at her apartment on the Upper East Side of New York. She opened the outer metallic shutters and admired the calm waters of the East River and its boats advancing in slow motion. The view to the river was one of the reasons she had bought such a spacious apartment in the city's upper town. It was an oasis of peace in the middle of the Big Apple's madness. Everything smelled musty. She opened all the windows completely and went out to the balcony. The day was sunny yet fresh, fall was ending its reign and winter neared with low temperatures at dawn. After a few minutes standing in her balcony, Loreto spotted a few Paparazzi from neighboring buildings pointing zooms and oversized photo cameras in her direction. Her landline phone rang. Peace had come to an end. It was her agent. She had to take distance between her ear and the device as the man shouted his anguish and concern about her. Then he told all the details of the mishaps he suffered cancelling concerts, giving interviews, rejecting contracts, annulling the agreement with the Grand Theater about her residency. At no moment did he ask about how she was doing.

"Mitch, I have cancer," Loreto said without further ado.

The man at the other side of the line went silent. Loreto hung up. She collapsed on her couch face down and sighed, exhausted. How far she was from Bethmoora! Half an hour by taxi, an entire universe apart. She forced herself to get up and dragged her feet to her en-suite bathroom. She undressed and went under the shower. She allowed the hot water to massage her skin. She soaped herself and palpated the almost non-existent dot on her left biceps where the bullet had entered. It was barely noticeable. She touched the five small scars spread along her abdomen. They were completely healed. She went out of the shower and grabbed her notebook. She searched for recommendations of the best oncologists in the city. The waiting lists for a first visit were months or even years long. She returned her agent's call.

"If you want to help me, I'll send you the contact info of a few oncologists. Get me an appointment ASAP and I forgive you for not having asked for a single second how the fuck I'm doing or feeling."

She stayed in the entire day. She had hundreds of missed calls, messages in her answering machine and hundreds of emails in her inbox. Her parents, friends, colleagues, the Grand Theater people, others from the studio, the record label, dozens of television and magazine journalists. What was she to say? She had taken part in the operation to capture the Prince of Elves and in the process, a man-fish had discovered a malignant tumor in her stomach? She switched the plasma TV on and immediately regretted it. A program was showing pictures of her taken that morning at the abandoned warehouse's exit at the Brooklyn bridge. She locked herself behind her bedroom door, closed the shutters and slept.

Three days passed without setting foot outside. She called for food delivery and decided to stick at home as the only shelter against the Paparazzi's lens. The world out there, the one she always knew, now seemed foreign and cold. Weeks in the agency amongst paranormal creatures and beings with special powers. The few hours in the company of Prince Nuada and the quick visit to the underground world that was his kingdom made her question everything. The sum of the situation was that the Prince was right. Humans destroyed all on their road. They killed each other! She had been naïve to even suggest to him to consider a peaceful solution to secure his people a safe and guaranteed return to the surface. His kind was the closest to look at history personified in a selected group of millennial beings. And despite their hierarchy in the planet, wisdom and acquired knowledge along the eons, they had been pushed to live underground like disregarded old furniture. She understood his rage, yet she couldn't share the way the Prince wanted to resolve the conflict. The killing would be total. The definitive holocaust of human race. She was also human. He had said he wouldn't hurt her, and she wanted to believe him but, in the context of war, would an experienced and smart warrior like himself allow the luxury of showing a behavior which exposes him before the enemy? He had already made that mistake and, as a result, had ended up chained in a torture chamber for almost four complete weeks. They could've hurt him much worse if Loreto hadn't interfered.

Her thoughts were with the Prince, his sister and his people. The fascination and immediate dread of the servant elf at the warehouse door when spotting the early morning broke her heart. On the other side, Loreto had to visit a doctor soon, a human one, yet in three days she got no signs of life from her agent. She hated to make use of her privileges and use her fame to get an appointment with an oncologist, but if she didn't do it, perhaps it was going to be too late.

The persistent ringing woke her up. Total darkness. Loreto jumped in fear off her bed and sat on the border. She switched the nightstand lamp on and in a frenzy she looked for the landline and cell phones. She prayed that it was Mitch with news of an oncologist appointment. She took both devices in her hands, yet they were silent. The ringing persisted. She frowned and went to the front door. Who was belling? Night had already fallen, the wall watch in her living room showed a few minutes passed two in the morning. She looked through the peep hole and didn't recognize the man standing at the other side.

_Loreto, I'm Nuada._

Her stomach pit shrunk in expectation. The Prince? He looked like any other guy. Loreto opened the door dubiously. The man fixed her with his gaze. He recited something in that ancestral language her ears immediately recognized. And the Prince manifested himself again before her eyes. Loreto smiled broadly and gestured inside. She had an urge to hug his waist tightly and nestle against his chest.

_Before the war begins, I will search for you. Now that I know your energy I will be able to find you. You will find refuge here and bring your parents. It's all I can promise._

Loreto swallowed hard. The moment was upon her. The extermination of the human race. The Prince walked through her apartment's livingroom with slow yet strong traces as if discovering an inhospitable territory. He advanced to the U-shaped couch and turned around to her.

"Will the war soon begin?", Loreto whispered and stoic, she endured the chills her own words caused in her spine. "Must I already go for my parents?"

The Prince took out his sword belt and removed the lance from his back. He let both weapons land on the thick white fur rug and sat himself on the couch with his head between his hands.

"There won't be any war," he uttered from the back of his throat.

Tentative, Loreto walked towards him and slowly sat down at his right side.

"Why not?"

The Prince raised his head and supported both elbows on his muscular thighs. He faced her behind long locks of bleached hair half covering his gaze.

"Because I've been betrayed," he said and let his head hang. His hair tips were almost brushing his long carved black leather boots.

Loreto held her breath. His voice was loaded with pain.

"Why are you here then?," she asked in a thread of voice.

The Prince turned to face her once again.

"Because I didn't know where else to go."

  
  



	18. Chapter 18

Princess Nuala had finished doing what she considered right. She had destroyed the last crown piece of Bethmoora before her brother's eyes.

"I've been betrayed by my own blood. The wound will never heal,"the Prince said with a shaky voice at the verge of breaking.

For all his power, dexterity and millenary wisdom, he who was sitting at her left side was a broken man, or rather, a broken elf. He continued in the same position. Forearms on his thighs, hands intertwined, gaze focused ahead. Loreto could barely distinguish his profile in between the curtain of his long straight bleached hairs.He was in shock.

"I killed my father in vain. I'm unworthy to be his heir. The crown shall forever remain incomplete. Bethmoora will remain without a king and under the ground for eternity."

What could Loreto say to cheer him up? She decided to remain silent. She wished to comfort him somehow, yet any idea that crossed her mind involved a form of physical contact she was unsure the Prince would approve of. She didn't know how elves dealt with this kind of pain. She didn't know whether he just wanted to be heard or expected something else from her.

"I don't remember the glossy green of tree leaves under the sun rays nor its warm caress on my skin," he whispered, choked and, still lost in thought, he lowered his gaze towards the rug. "The day's sparkle on fresh snow, the transparent water of a brook, the early morning low tide of Bethmoora's coasts and the high one later in the evening. The horses riding free on prairies, the birds singing, lost in the top forest branches. I don't remember the colors of a rainbow," he uttered and his voice broke.

The Prince closed his eyes. Tears rolled down his pale cheeks and hung from his strong jawline and landed on his boots. Loreto swallowed hard through the sudden knot in her throat. She ventured her hand towards his direction. Carefully she tangled her fingers in between his hairs and removed them behind his ear. The Prince turned his head to face her. Only then she noticed the discreet pointy tip of his ear and the circular scars on his temple. They didn't look like scars. These and the one crossing his face from one cheekbone to the other surely were birthmarks. She caught a tear with her thumb and caressed his cheek with her knuckles barely levitating above his skin. It was rough and porous. He looked into her eyes with his amber ones, which were flooded with tears.

_I'm exhausted. I don't want to fight any more._

His voice in her mind was no longer a reason to panic. Loreto placed her left hand near his right one. She caressed it and took it in hers. It was big and calloused. The Prince stared astonished at how Loreto interlaced her fingers with his and caressed its back with her thumb. She took it to her mouth and gave a silent kiss. Nuada watched her open-mouthed.

"You can stay here tonight if you like," Loreto whispered and took his big hand in both hers against her cheek.

The Prince alternated his stunned gaze between his hand trapped in hers and her face as if exerting himself to understand. He noticed the large front windows. The outer metallic shutters were up and the profile of New York's small hours was visible on the horizon from the other side of the East River.

"The sun will shine bright at dawn," he thought out loud with his gaze fixed on the exterior.

Loreto stood up and searched the shutters' remote control. She pressed the button and lowered them completely. The living room was rendered in darkness. She switched the standing lamp on and adjusted its light to reach a brightness similar to that of a candle.

"German design. As soon as I saw them in Germany, I wanted to have them installed here. Not a single sun ray filters through the day, I promise you."

The Prince gave a hint to something remotely similar to an asymmetrical grin.

"Are you hungry? Thirsty? We can call for vegan food for you," Loreto offered with her best amiable voice.

The Prince tilted his head and frowned.

"There are lots of raw and cooked vegan food restaurants in New York," Loreto said and quickly she went to her bedroom for her notebook and landline phone.

As she came back to the couch, Nuada remained just as puzzled. His complete cluelessness about the modern human world both moved and amused her. Loreto did a quick search for such a restaurant and ordered two of their most complete menus.

"Forty minutes," she informed him and sat down on the couch by his right.

The Prince stood up suddenly.

"I must go back. I don't want to impose," he said with a dry voice and reached for his sword on the floor.

"What's that so urgent you have to do? Didn't you have me in your home?" Loreto said and stood up before him. She had to look towards the roof to face him. She went on top of the couch and turned him by the shoulders. She achieved to make him grin as he finally saw her face to face at his same height. "Let me spoil you. We eat something, we listen to some music, we talk, we drink some wine. You'll feel a little better. It's what we humans do when we want to make company to a friend who's sad."

The Prince smiled. His eyes shone for the first time since she met him. An expansive warmth manifested from within Loreto's chest and ran from head to toes. She yearned to leap into his arms and hug him tight with all her strength. However, she didn't wish to overwhelm him. She took his hands in hers.

"You told me I was your friend for having helped you escape the agency. Well, when a friend of mine suffers, I'm here to lend an ear, to open the doors of my home and give them all my time and attention."

Nuada questioned her with his eyes as if still having difficulties trusting or believing in her. He uttered a shy smile and removed his sword belt. Loreto went down from the couch and poured two glasses of wine. The Prince accepted reluctantly. She didn't know whether he drank alcohol, let alone human alcoholic drinks. This one in particular came from a small organic vineyard in Italy. Loreto had brought a few bottles from her last concert in the country at the south of Europe. When she saw the Prince suspiciously smell the content, she wanted to clarify it was in fact a strictly vegan and biological wine, but it wasn't necessary.

"I know, I heard you," he said amused and pointed to Loreto's forehead with his index.

They chuckled and toasted. She observed him, intrigued by his reaction. The Prince drank a small sip with his gaze lost on the floor. He chewed the flavor like a professional sommelier and drank another sip.

"Not bad," was his verdict.

Loreto sat back against the couch's back support and wall and hugged her legs. The Prince sat with crossed legs as if meditating. His back was always straight and his chin held up high. He was looking again like the Prince she had met, exuding pride and dignity.

"How do you know my music?" Loreto asked suddenly. "Agent Sherman said you liked my music but I don't remember having seen any radio, TV or computer at your place."

"It's unnecessary. Nothing beats the live sound of a theater," he said and drank from his glass.

A wine drop clung to the corner of his dark mouth. Loreto resisted the urge to dry it with her thumb.

"So you really attended my residence's first concert. Did you use some spell to intermingle with the audience like you just did to arrive here?"

"I was in the attic."

Loreto opened her eyes in surprise.

"And you didn't get caught?," she asked intrigued and sat with crossed legs like him facing him.

The Prince shook his head.

"Nobody ever goes up there. Attics are like sewers. They're always abandoned and reduced to dumpsters. There are loads of disused devices, dust, darkness and spiders."

Loreto shrunk back, disgusted. Nuada laughed, amused.

"I bet spiders recognize you as you go. You are their Prince after all. The Prince of nature and of all animals. Don't they bow before you balanced on their back legs with the six front ones praising you?"

The Prince burst out laughing and shook his head.

"I don't understand why humans fear insects, eat some animals and keep others at home like family members. All creatures are equal. Insects have their own reason to be. Spiders eat flies, toads eat them too."

"No one likes flies. They have too many eyes. I don't trust flies."

Nuada laughed again and shook his head with closed eyes. His laugh was deep, exquisite. Loreto observed him. For a moment she forgot that the being sitting by her side wasn't human. On a basic universal level, all beings, regardless of origin, nature or age, wished to live in peace. Communication was possible if attempted. His sister had done the right thing, but in the process she had broken his heart.

"Which other human musicians do you like?," Loreto asked and drank a sip from her glass.

Nuada raised his brows and lost his gaze on the roof.

"There are so many I don't remember them all," he drank a sip of wine. "At the end of the 16th century I used to love to climb in the attic of the Oude Kerk of Amsterdam and listen to Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck's choirs. I've never been able to forget them. The capacity of creating perfectly harmonious sounds with human voices fascinated me and it still does. At the beginning of the 18th century I spent a season in Leipzig only to listen to the organ concerts of Johann Sebastian Bach. He played in different cathedrals of the city. A very hardworking man. He moved from place to place with diligence. He was always carrying a leather binder under his arm. The end of the 18th century in Vienna was interesting with the premieres of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's operas. One after the other. In order to attend, I had to use the spell to alter my look. Theater attics in that time weren't as abandoned as they are today. In contrary, they were used as the center of mechanical operations for the stage."

Loreto remained open-mouthed.

"You attended the premieres of Mozart's operas?!," she let out fascinated.

The Prince observed her, amused. He neared his hand and gestured as if trying to catch something right before her astonished gaze.

"There are stars in your eyes," he said smiling, keeping eye contact.

She could not control the blushing. The Prince pretended to release the stars in the air with a blow and looked at her smiling.

"Yes," he replied and drank from his glass. "Your voice reminds me of Ella Fitzgerald's. Her singing filled the room and beyond. Her voice resembled this glass of wine," he contemplated it in his hand, "blood red and filled with bittersweet in the mouth. Her heart was pure like yours."

"Did you meet her?!," Loreto blurted out and almost leaped onto the Prince.

He smiled, amused at her enthusiasm.

"She performed in the Grand Theater in the decade of 1940."

Loreto jumped from the couch and went to her tall CD shelf. She produced the compilation _**Ella For Lovers**_ of 2003 and played it. She returned to the couch with Nuada. She saw him close his eyes and lean his head back, lost in the music. Loreto smiled. For the first time, he seemed relaxed, at ease. Carefully, she made herself comfortable against the backrest and imitated him. The voice of Mrs. Ella flooded her ears like thick syrup along romantic piano chords. Loreto clinked her wineglass with his. It took him out of his musical trance. He uttered a half grin.

"Why do you like human music? I thought you despised us all equally," Loreto said tentatively of her words.

"Music is light. I've spent half my life trying to return to the light. It lightens the heart, it heals soul wounds, it transcends beyond understanding, it enchants," he drank the last sip of his glass. "Nuala is wrong, I know what she thinks and feels about myself-imposed exile period. I always wished to return to Bethmoora, but it was impossible for me to accept the humiliation of living underground being the prince of the Sons of the Earth. I hated my father for too long, poisoning my heart with the mere memory of him. If I've survived all this time without losing my mental sanity, it is because of music and those like you who dedicate their lives to give their gift to the world."

An overwhelmingly humbling sensation enwrapped Loreto. Compared with the giants of music of all time, she was only a spoiled and privileged girl. Everything she wrote and composed was for herself. Some songs were personal stories while others, loose thoughts in a crude attempt at poetry to match the chords enough to turn them into a song. To express solely through an instrument or orchestra and to manage to say the essential with the minimum, that was the real goal. Too many words and rhymes tangled the message, harmonic progressions capable of making Chopin shrug in disgust.

"Don't do that to yourself," the Prince blurted and cupped her face in both his hands.

For a split of a second, she forgot how to breathe. She couldn't help but stare at the half-open dark mouth of his thin lips. The wine tannins were beginning to loosen her up. The velvet voice of Mrs.Ella Fitzgerald sounding from the stereo in the background helped to intoxicate her even more. The Prince moved away from her and leaned against the couch's backrest.

"Your voice is a gift, Loreto," the Prince said with his head supported against the wall and his eyes closed. "When the pain in my chest had no longer a single crack through which to escape, in the moments where total darkness weighed tons on my shoulders, when I desperately searched for a reason to stay alive, music stretched its hand into the pit to lift me. And from the beginning of the new century it has been you who has intoxicated me with your voice," the Prince said. He opened his eyes and fixed his gaze on his wineglass. "The brief moments listening to you live from some theater's attic have filled my heart with peace and light. In a solitary and immortal existence in the shadows, I've learned to appreciate them like a scarce oasis in the vast desert. Your voice has been my only friend and your music my only solace in my times of grief. The world closes their eyes and breathes in peace when they hear you sing, and so do I."

She blushed once again, and this time the Prince noticed. Loreto lowered her gaze, entrapped in a sudden shroud of inhibition uncommon for her. She looked him in the eye and tried to search for the truth in his words. He reciprocated, blinked once and focused on his glass. He drank the rest of his glass and fixed his gaze in front as if avoiding eye contact. It was the most beautiful and moving thing anyone had ever said about her music. Loreto never imagined meaning so much for someone on the face of the Earth.

She observed Nuada at such a short distance sitting on the couch. There was nobody else remotely similar to him. Not in his features, nor in his nature, life or origin. He was unique. The last prince of his kind. She felt the imperative need to protect him, aid him, snuggle him on her chest, keep him from the cold, save him from the dark, to accompany him. It wasn't the first time her heart experienced such emotion, yet all the other times she had entertained it, had been in vain and for people who never deserved all the noble and kind feelings Loreto had for them. Love wears out, or rather the heart grows tired of disappointments to only receive pain in return.

Nevertheless, it now beat strongly and hopefully with fresh energy, like a teenager with no life experience. It was absurd. She wasn't a little girl anymore, Loreto was a grown up woman and the mistress of her own life. It was absurd to even consider such feelings for a being like Prince Nuada. A being sworn to his people and with a heavy quandary in his hands as there has been but a few in Mankind's history. If there was anything she had learned in the past weeks is that life is too short. Any day could be the last. Why do we question so harshly what we feel with all sorts of criteria learned at an age when cynicism has already gained terrain in our hearts? Loreto drank the rest of her wine. She then left the glass on the floor and searched for Nuada's hand on the couch. He lowered his gaze from the horizon and stared at her gesture. He squeezed it in his. If he read her mind perhaps he already knew what Loreto was feeling. If she was an open book for him, there was no need to ruin her heartbeat with any explanation attempts where language is too short to express its dimension and weight. Nuada wrapped his fingers in hers and embraced it. They looked into each other's eyes. The abyss of his dilated iris framed by his golden pupils shone in the living room, lighted by the dim standing lamp. He blinked slowly and breathed out like an exhausted sigh. Her chest overflowed her throat and eyes with overwhelming feeling. Why? It made no sense. It was already too late to search for an explanation. Too late to turn back.

  
  



	19. Chapter 19

The Prince finished his meal with a smile on his lips. He had removed the protections on his chest and forearms. He wore an almost black, dark blue coat with trousers to match and a golden middle section with the symbol of Bethmoora as the buckle of his silk belt of the same color. All his outfits looked as if they had been sewn directly onto his body. They aligned perfectly with his tall and lean silhouette. They drank the rest of the wine bottle and opened another one. It was past four in the morning, yet time had remained still in her apartment. He didn't show any sign of tiredness. This time, the small hours, was his day. Loreto, however, fought against the imminent yawn. She wished the night to never end. She was spellbound listening to him. She took the opportunity to ask what or who had produced the earthquake shock hours before her first residence concert at the Grand Theater. He told her about the origin of the forest god, the Elemental. The one the Prince had released that night was the last of its kind. Agent Hellboy had killed it with three well-aimed shots. Nuada could not hide his pain as he remembered.

"The Elementals give and destroy all life on the planet. Their ichor feeds of green even the most inert concrete," he said with pride in his voice and his gaze lost in a random spot before him." They also have the power to heal any creature of Mother Earth."

They were sitting in the dining room. Loreto allowed Nuada to sit at the head of the table at her left. She didn't mind. He finally seemed relaxed. The wine had made him forget, at least for a few hours, the pain he carried along. The CD reached its end, Loreto then played the following installment of the compilation _**For Lovers: Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong.**_

"You should have seen it, Loreto!," he rose his voice thrilled and faced her. "Even in its last hour, the Elemental's spores turned the street and adjoining buildings into the forest floor. It rained pollen, the moss gained terrain through the asphalt and for a single moment, that corner of the city smelled like fertile soil."

His amber eyes shone. They were barely distinguishable under his eyebrowless, yet prominent brow by the dim light of the standing lamp. The shadow it produced mingled with the dark skin of his eyelids and under his eyes. They glowed in the shadows like the focused gaze of a feline hunter in the night. She would have observed him for hours. His features seemed like the result of a Renaissance artist's chisel on the marble block. The strong nose with a slightly curved bridge, the thin dark lips like the skin of his eyelids, the marked superb cheekbones, the strong jawline, the tall and wide forehead. There was no trace of beard or mustache on his face. Loreto shook her head. The wine was loosening her up. The Prince noticed how she was staring at him. He drew half a smile and drank the last sip of his glass.

"So- so- so they don't exist on the planet anymore," Loreto mumbled and dried her sweaty palms on her pajamas pants. "Aren't they at least other creatures equally powerful under the elves' command?"

"The forest demigods," he answered immediately. "Their destructive and healing powers are not as great as that of theElemental, but on them our health mainly depends. Surprisingly for us, as we built the many underground cities of Bethmoora all along the world, the descendants of the Elemental could grow and blossom under the ground despite the scarce sunlight available." The Prince lowered his eyes and combed his hairs backwards with his fingers. He let out a frustrated sigh and let himself fall against the chair's backrest. "My druids fear the demigods biology may have also evolved like ours to adapt to underground life and that that change may have weakened their properties."

He suddenly stood up and went to the couch. He almost collapsed, laying with his back against the wall and his legs anchored to the floor. Loreto left the table as it was and tentatively approached his side. She sat down at his right with crossed legs and watched him in silence. The Prince closed his eyes, facing the roof. He searched for her hand and took it in his.

"Thanks," he said with a fatigued sigh and squeezed her hand in his. He interlaced his fingers with hers and let out a sarcastic chuckle. "I never thought I'd have a human friend. One never stops learning."

Loreto smiled as she observed him, fascinated.

"If you with thousands of years of life say one never stops learning, then what's there left for me?," she mumbled amused with an ironic overtone and hugged the Prince's hand.

Nuada opened his eyes. He sat before her and approached until they were face to face. Loreto swallowed hard and took a deep breath. He emanated a raw and warm perfume from his neck. She wished to bury her nose in his skin and feel its warmth on her lips. Loreto bit her lower lip and held back the delicious tickle that shook her lower belly. He looked straight into her eyes.

"You have the type of eye color that changes with sunlight," he whispered deep. "What's their real color?"

Loreto ventured to caress his cheek. She allowed herself to brush with her index tip the mark that divided his face from one cheekbone to the other. Then she went through those circular ones on his temples. The Prince uttered half a grin and closed his eyes. He shortened the distance. Her heart beat out of control in her chest and rang in her ears.

"Hazel," Loreto managed to whisper. She licked her lips and attempted to hold his gaze. She could taste his breath at such a short distance. "Brown in the night, green in the day. Sad in the winter..."

"Gleaming in the summer," Nuada whispered faltering against her mouth and caressing her cheek.

It burned. Every cell of her body was slowly beginning to burn. She tried in vain to quiet down her agitated breathing. The Prince came closer and began brushing his face with hers. He reached her neck and took a deep breath against her skin. Loreto could not control the volume of the gasp that escaped her vocal chords. She felt his half-open lips brush her neck. He went up to her ear, advanced to her jaw. Loreto closed her eyes. The light touch of his skin with hers made her pores to stand wherever she felt him. His natural perfume was robbing her of every last bit of self-control. Her lower belly began melting away. She allowed herself to imitate him. She brushed his neck and cheeks with her half-open lips. She heard him let out a choked sigh in her ear. He intertwined his long fingers in Loreto's loose hairs and played with her locks, swirling and massaging her scalp. His breath was controlled and steady in her ear. A chill manifested on her nape and expanded through her back, shaking her completely. Loreto tangled her fingers in his long bleached hairs and cupped his face by his strong jawline. She moved away from him enough to face him. His dilated iris inside his amber pupils darkened his gaze even more. They breathed into each other's mouths like one being.

"Tell me how your eyes were," Loreto gasped with a thin voice thread.

"Opal and emerald," Nuada whispered in a labored sigh.

"And your skin?"

"Pale and rosy in the winter, tanned in the summer."

"And your hair?"

"Golden like the sun rays."

The Prince lowered his head and let out a loud exhale. He faced her and took distance.

"I've become a monster," his voice darkened. "For your eyes I must look like one at least. I differ so much from a human's appearance. I differ so much from whom I used to be when there was still hope in my heart."

Loreto leaped on his neck and embraced him in her arms with no chance to escape. She attracted him by the nape, nestling him against her neck. Nuada corresponded her hug with reluctance at first, then he squeezed her. Loreto searched for his mouth and softly she kissed his lips. She closed her eyes and cupped his marble face in her hands. The Prince let out a guttural sigh and kissed her back. His dark lips were soft and warm. They trembled. They separated. Nuada searched in her eyes for the meaning. His demeanor screamed skepticism. Loreto smiled and caressed his cheek.

"You're not a monster," Loreto whispered inside his mouth. "You're the most beautiful being I've ever known."

Nuada kissed her back, opening his way in her mouth. There was desperation in his touch, an urgency, a categorical imperative. Loreto hung from his neck and pulled him against her. He tasted like wine and scorching moist warmth. They collapsed and merged as one on the couch. Loreto tangled her legs with his and hugged his wide back. The Prince trapped her beneath him with all his body weight and kissed her deep and slow as if he had all time at his disposal. His big hands explored her body as he ventured one under her T-shirt. Loreto moaned away at the contact. The Prince went down on her, kissing her neck, her collarbone, her breasts and removed her T-shirt exposing her naked abdomen. He pressed his face against her skin and inhaled deeply. He left a trail of kisses on her skin as he caressed her core with his hands. Suddenly he stopped. He raised his head and looked at her. Loreto opened her eyes and faced him. An expansive wave of dread overwhelmed her as she read his features. Nuada placed both open hands on her abdomen and, focused, lost his gaze in a random spot. He pulled himself together, sat up on the couch and stood up in one movement. He offered his hands towards Loreto. A bad omen nested in the pit of her stomach. Dubious, Loreto took them. He pulled her up with no effort and raised her to her feet.

"What's going on?," Loreto barely whispered and wore back her T-shirt suddenly shy before him.

"Let's go to Bethmoora. I must take you to my druids," he said as he quickly wore his protections. He embedded his lance to his back and wore the sword belt. He faced her and hugged her tight against his chest. "I'm afraid your cancer has returned," he whispered, faltering against her head.

  
  



	20. Chapter 20

His heart refused to slow down from its constant quake. It beat against his chest, threatening to leave him out of breath. The knot strangling his throat had Nuada at the verge of tears. His skin began to burn. The small hours were ending. The shy sun rays of a new day were opening their way in the dark blue sky. He hugged Loreto tight under his arm and hurried his steps. Humans watched him as they passed by. Some stared at him as a ghostly manifestation while others shouted obscenities and insults typical of their ignorance. As they left Loreto's residence, there was no time to recite the spell to camouflage his real appearance. Time ran out through their fingers. The cancer was eating Loreto away. He felt it in the palm of his hands like a starving parasite consuming her organs. He swallowed through his tight throat. Loreto made a taxi to stop and ordered the driver to travel to the Brooklyn bridge. Nuada didn't know whether his druids could help her, but he couldn't remain crossed arms doing nothing as life abandoned her.

Something in his chest shook in horror at the mere idea of losing her. He had never wanted to involve himself with a human in this way. Their life expectancy, even in the best of scenarios, was but a breeze in his. He didn't remember when was the last time the warmth and light of love had touched his heart. The hatred and cynicism of eons had turned it into cold stone. Until today. Perhaps it was because there was nothing else left. He had murdered his father with his own hands and his twin sister had stabbed him in the back. If he knew his people well, he knew they wouldn't accept being ruled by him. He had killed, stole and pushed the Princess, his sister, into exile. All his life he believed without Bethmoora his existence had no sense. The once proud kingdom crumbled like the sandy stone corpse of his father. Maybe they were in fact destined to fade like the last millenary race on the planet. Nuada closed his eyes and shook his head. Loreto clung to his chest in the taxi's backseat. She sobbed. He kissed her head and took a deep breath with his nose buried into her hair.

They reached the access door of the Troll market when the lights of day had already left the moon silhouette behind in the sky. His exposed skin suffered from his brief contact with sun rays during the few meters they had to walk until the abandoned warehouse. He felt millions of tiny sharp needles piercing his body at the same time. He inhaled through his teeth in silence. Loreto didn't seem to notice. As soon as they entered underground a group of Bogarts went out to greet him as he walked by. The toothfairies flew from one corner to the other, producing a general buzzing with their quick flapping. The stand owners were busy distributing, cutting, piling and storing their produce. Everything continued the same as always underground. Loreto walked, hugged to his waist. She looked at her surroundings with mistrust or fear. For him, all creatures of Bethmoora deserved to live on the surface of the planet as much as the ruling elves. To Loreto's eyes, perhaps all this underground world was a reason of repulsion. There was once a day in ancient time when these beings walked dignified the Earth as yet other members of the diversity of races of the planet. As much as the elves, those inhabitants of Bethmoora's underground cities had also suffered the evolution of their organs to adapt to the lack of flora and sunlight.

After crossing the market and entering his dwelling, the Prince guided the road to the studies and practice chamber of the Elven druids. The wise ones were surprised to see him arrive once again in human company. He updated them about Loreto's medical record. The druid extended both hands in her direction and with closed eyes perceived her energy from head to toes and back. Loreto had barely uttered a single word. There was dread in her eyes. And a silent plea for help.

"Eldar," he spoke to one of the druids, "I make you personally responsible for her."

The five wise ones took a bow at the same time. One of them faced Loreto and gestured towards the interior of the chamber. Nuada took her hand and kissed it. _Don't leave me alone,_ she screamed in her thoughts. _You'll be in good hands. I won't be far,_ he replied, looking into her eyes.

Reluctantly, he walked away from her and let loose of her hand. She seemed like a little girl among the druids. Even he had to look up to face them. He entered his shelter and collapsed on the armchair before the fireplace. Arasne arrived by his side, took a bow and asked whether he wished to eat or drink anything. The Prince barely shook his head and dismissed her. His stomach was closed tight. He didn't know how long he remained staring at the crackling flames. He went into a trance. He knew that if the druids couldn't help Loreto, he'd fall headfirst into the abyss and once there, nothing or nobody would save him. She was the last weak halo of light who through a thin crack in his heart was slipping through with all her strength. Strength was the one thing she was lacking in her weak human body. Why did such a kind soul exist in such a liable host? It made no sense. He saw himself hanging from the void, barely holding on with his exhausted fingers exerting such pressure. He was giving in into the infinite void at his feet, calling him like a magnet.

He woke up in the blink of an eye. He stood up and went to the druids chamber. How long had he been in the trance? Gaelin went to meet him. His countenance didn't bode good news. He informed him they had administered a forest demigod ichor treatment along an infusion based on extracts of different medicinal plants. Nuada walked in the section and gasped in shock as he saw Loreto unconscious on the platform in the middle. He shouldn't have been surprised, for it wasn't the first time she was under the spell to induce unconsciousness. Besides, both he and all elves went through the same procedure at the druids' hands. Just like she told him the human doctors had induced a state of coma to speed up her recovery, Elven druids made a similar process based on spells to ensure the inert body regenerates outside the consciousness influence.

"It's advisable His Royal Highness returns to his private chambers," Gaelin said in a gloomy voice and gestured with solemnity towards the exit, "this will take time."

"Why? Tell me what you need," Nuada insisted and didn't move from Loreto's side.

"We're not familiar with the human anatomy, Sir," the druid said and took a bow with the head. "This is differs from removing a bullet, Your Highness. Ideally, we'd consult with a human versed in the biology of his kind. Their bodies are polluted with the product of their toxicity and modernity. Perhaps our treatments do not make an effect where the human hand has closed the way to the power of nature."

Nuada frowned and fixed his gaze on Loreto. She was far gone sleeping as he had found her collapsed on the aisle floor of the Grand Theater. A chill attacked his spine and nested in his center with the coldness of desolation. _A human versed in the biology of his kind._ In a flash, the Prince turned around towards the exit and left the chamber running with wide traces. At his back he heard the druid asking where was he going. Quickly, he went to his dwelling and wore his protections. He embedded the lance to his back and adjusted the sword belt to his waist. Arasne consulted the clock and, worried, warned that the sun wasn't setting for another two hours.

"Time is what we don't have," the Prince mumbled as he laced his silk belt. "Think of me, Arasne. If the gods are with me, I'll get help for Loreto and I'll bring the Princess home."

  
  



	21. Chapter 21

The sudden stinging of the skin on her face, neck and hands woke up Nuala in a leap. She removed herself from the bed and sat at the border, alert to her surroundings. She switched on the lamp on her nightstand. She felt the daylight burn her skin. She clenched her teeth and eyes. _Nuada._ Her heart skipped a beat. She opened her eyes and swallowed hard. She rubbed her cheeks and the back of her hands, desperate to scratch. The piercing diminished slowly. Her brother had exposed himself to the sunlight. What was he doing? Nuala tried to focus and connect with his thoughts. She called him time and again. Something had changed. There, where before she only felt darkness in his heart, there was now a blinding light that stopped her from reaching him. The burning ceased. She exhaled tiredly and let herself fall back on the bed.

Days and nights living in the B.P.R.D. facilities didn't differ much from the New York sewers. More than a month after having arrived at the agency, Nuala still hadn't found a single window to show the outdoors. Her skin and eyes were thankful for it, yet with bitterness she had to accept the irony of living on the surface of the Earth but unable to spot, at least from the indoors, a bit of flora and landscape. Sun rays through a glass could also hurt her. It was better this way. She spent hours in the superb library where Abraham lived. They shared afternoons and evenings reading together, listening to music and talking. Agent Hellboy and his partner Agent Sherman had moved to a bigger dwelling inside the building, awaiting their firstborn. They would be twins. Since the time she had witnessed the Pyrokinesis power of Agent Sherman, the couple hadn't been heard arguing. They checked furniture catalogues for babies, debated options for names and wondered how they'd look like being the fruit of the love between a demon and a human with supernatural powers.

The black-suited human agents also had the team of scientists and professionals continue their ordinary labor. Having destroyed the last crown piece of Bethmoora, she had neutralized the threat her brother represented. She knew nothing about him. She didn't hear him in her thoughts. Absent. There, where her dearest and happiest memories growing up together were, invaded now a sickly nostalgia and melancholy that burdened her chest as soon as she remembered. She missed him. She didn't know whether he was fine, she only knew he was still alive, for she also was. Every night she begged the gods on his behalf. She said pleas to Mother Earth, protector and matriarch of the elves, in Nuada's name. Still now when she closed her eyes, she could still see him bloodshot with rage and pain at the moment Nuala gave her crown piece to the fire-enwrapped hands of Agent Sherman. Keeping the peace with the human world was costing her the despise of her own brother, her only living family.

She was talking one afternoon with Abraham in the library as she felt his presence again. She feared the worst when the sudden piercing of millions of needles on her skin made her hunch and tear in pain. She called him with all her strength. Nuada! Abraham hurried to her aid. Nuala barely stood up. Abraham imitated her and asked once and again whether she was fine. She heard his voice in her mind as clearly as yesterday. _Nuala._ The Princess supported herself on the furniture and walked towards the aisle. Abraham walked behind her. Leaning on walls, Nuala fought against the constant burning of her skin and barely dodged the corners and turns until arriving at the door separating her from the exterior. She stretched her hand forwards with an open palm and closed her eyes.

"Nuada is close, he's coming this way," she said with a shaky thread of voice.

Immediately she heard the deafening whistle of the emergency alarm. She turned and faced Abraham. She didn't blame him for having pressed it. The agency still considered her brother an imminent threat. Agents Hellboy, Sherman and Krauss arrived at the entrance and asked what was going on. Abraham updated them.

"But it's not even 5 pm!," Agent Hellboy noted in a loud remark, "What does he want? To roast out there?"

What was her brother doing out there at plain daylight? Was he actually suicidal? They heard the impact coming from the roof, both the human agents as the special ones prepared their guns. Abraham arrived to her side and with his body as he protected her like a shield. She clung to his arm and rested on him with all the weight of her body. Her face burned as much as her neck and hands. Another impact in the background let them know the noise came from the elevator. Everybody ran towards that direction. There he was. Nuada. Nuala gasped as she saw him as did everyone else. The elevator doors were open ajar, and he had fallen down on the floor halfway between the cabin and the ground floor tiles. Nuala ran to his aid. Abraham shouted at her to come back and tried to restrain her, but she let loose with the little strength left. She landed by his side on her knees, and sobbing, she took him in her arms. She called his name. The strength was abandoning her; she lost balance and collapsed on her brother. From somewhere she felt herself being lifted. Abraham and Agent Sherman took her by the arms and separated her from her brother. Nuada twisted on the floor. All agents pointed their guns at him. Nuala broke in tears. His pain was killing her inside. It was killing them both. She let go of Abraham once again and ran to his side just as Nuada was picking himself up on his feet. She caught him and hugged him tight.

"Sister," he whispered, faltering and leaned on her with all his weight.

Her legs shook, almost incapable of supporting his weight, yet she managed to hold him and look him in the eyes. Nuada faced her and leaned his forehead on hers. They both closed their eyes.

_I come in peace. Help me, Nuala. Loreto is dying._

The Princess turned towards the agents.

"Do not shoot! My brother comes in peace!," she pleaded sobbing.

Dubious, the agents lowered their guns but didn't yet holster them, instead they held them tight in their hands. Nuada straightened up slowly until he could stand firmly on his feet. The stinging in her skin began to slowly wear out.

"What are you searching for here, Prince?," Agent Hellboy demanded with a dry voice and took a step forward.

Nuala held him by the waist and gave him a hand as support.

"It's Loreto Clair. Her cancer has returned," he said with effort, still gasping for air and his face shrunk in pain. "For the last hours she has been under the care of my druids but they fear our medicine may not be enough to heal her. She told me Agent Abraham Sapien first detected her disease, and that she was operated here by human specialists."

Abraham walked towards the twins, Agent Sherman gave a step closer to him and lit her hands on fire.

"That's right," Abraham said.

Nuada let loose from his sister and walked towards the agent. He hadn't completely recovered yet.

"Please, come with me and bring your team of human medics. Loreto is dying. I myself felt the disease in her abdomen," his voice broke.

Nuala shook from head to toes. A warm and overwhelming sensation hugged her chest and made her eyes overflow with tears. She walked towards her brother and uttering no words, she took his hand and connected it with hers. She closed her eyes. He loved her. Nuada loved the human Loreto Clair. He had traveled under the fall sun to the agency to beg for help for her. Nuala connected her free hand with Abraham. The three created a telepathic chain. Her new friend read the same as she. He blinked several times and tilted his head. He turned towards Agent Hellboy.

"Brother Red, the Prince is being honest," he said.

"It seems like a trap," the Agent mumbled and triggered his gun.

"What for, demon?," Nuada said and let go of Nuala, "I don't scheme, I always fight face to face."

"If what he says is true," Agent Sherman intervened, "wouldn't it be better to bring her here along with the Elven druids? Here we have the medical equipment to examine her."

The twins and Abraham exchanged looks. Agent Krauss gave a step forward. Nuala felt in her core the nauseating dread of her brother when facing him. He was guilty of having tortured both of them for almost an entire month. Nuada produced the lance from his back and took distance.

"My apologies, Your Highnesses," the German Agent said in a chilling metallic voice. "I must make up somehow the damage I caused and I believe I know the way to do so."

He walked towards the elevator.

"Aren't you all coming along to Brooklyn? A patient awaits us."

  
  



	22. Chapter 22

The operation took place in complete routine choreography. Agents Hellboy, Sherman, Sapien and Krauss traveled along with the Elven twins and a handful of human agents from the agency to Brooklyn in the feigned garbage truck. They entered the Troll market escorted by the Prince, opened their way through the busy underground bazaar until reaching his private chambers. They crossed the installations, curiously observing the singular residence of His Highness until they arrived at the section where the druids had Loreto Clair under a spell. It was a high cave under a narrow skylight through which the light of street lamps on the surface entered. The agents were left open-mouthed. The space was the closest to a miniature forest in the middle of the New York sewers. An underground winter garden. The darkness of rocks and city foundations highly contrasted with the lively green of the dense botanical spot. Even the normally foul and moist air underground smelled light and fresh in this place. Five elves considerably taller than the Prince neared and closed the road to the strangers. The host quickly explained who they were and what they were doing there. The druids took a dramatic bow before both royal twins and guided them towards the main platform. The human agents displayed the foldable medical bed next to the platform and like a hospital patient, they took Loreto Clair by the arms and legs to move her. The Prince ordered the druids to pack everything required for Loreto's treatment and to come along with them to the agency. The wise ones obeyed, puzzled, and the group left the Prince's residence, opening their way through the Troll market to exit to the abandoned warehouse at the Brooklyn bridge.

As they made it to the agency, Agents Sapien and Krauss guided the druids towards the medical department where they immediately took Loreto. She was still unconscious. The Prince walked behind the group, but his sister grabbed him by the arm.

"Let them do their job," she said with a soft tone in their native Gaelic. "You've already done yours."

Nuada remained in the same spot halfway down the main aisle as he saw the group of agents push the medical bed where Loreto laid. They disappeared behind a corner. He swallowed hard. Agents Hellboy and Sherman passed them by and retired to their private rooms. Nuala walked towards the grand library. Once she was before the door, she turned. Her brother was still standing motionless in the same place. She called his name and opened the doors for him. The Prince blinked several times as if trying to wake himself up. He looked at his sister and mechanically walked towards her.

The last time he'd been in this room was when Nuala gave her crown piece to the pynokinesic agent. The millenary piece of gold forged in the guts of Northern Ireland could not resist the blazing heat of her flames and melted drop by drop on this very floor. Reluctantly, Nuada walked through the library and reached its center along the couches. Nuala seemed to feel at home. She went to the counter and poured two glasses of wine. She extended one his way. He stared at her puzzled. His sister rarely drank alcohol.

"Last night in the small hours I woke up feeling dizzy. I knew it was you," she said amused and clunk her glass with his. "You were with her, weren't you?"

Nuada looked into her eyes. He remembered the hours in Loreto's residence. Neither did he drink frequently nor excessively. The wine tannins had taken him by surprise. He had kissed her. For an instant, drunk by her perfume and taste, tangled in her arms and with his eyes closed tight, he had forgotten about it all. About the fact that Loreto was a human, about Nuala's betrayal, about his father's death pierced by the edge of his own sword. Trapped in between her lips he had forgotten about the pain of ultraviolet sun rays on his skin, about the sentence of living underground, about the agony and injustice of seeing his people swept to the roadside of history, about the rage of seeing the magical creatures of Bethmoora lose their beautiful furs because of the lack of sunlight. For a few minutes he could be an elf without the weight of the crown awaiting his ascension to the throne. Loreto was an antidote to the venom eating him away for eons. The Prince drank a long sip of wine and tumbled down on the couch with the glass between his cupped hands and his elbows supported on his thighs. His sister sat down before him. He faced her. There were no secrets between them. The second they made visual contact Nuala knew what was going on in his heart.

"She will die," the Princess said in a low voice. "Not today, nor tomorrow. She'll recover from this disease, I'm certain of it. But one day, in the blink of an eye, she'll be gone. She's human. Life drains through their fingers. You'll end up alone and time will pass mercilessly for you and I until the distance will be such, the wound of her loss will heal in your heart."

His view clouded by the tears. Nuada blinked and let them roll freely down his cheeks. He swallowed hard and clenched his jaw. He drank the rest of wine in one sip. The dry sweetness of red wine burned his tight throat.

"I know," he mumbled, rasping. "Do you remember what mother used to tell us about time?"

Nuala blinked, surprised, and drew a weak smile on her lips. Her demeanor shrunk with melancholy.

_Time is irrelevant to the truth of the heart. In its center dwells the compass that ought to guide you through life. Its arrow always shows the right way and the right time. It doesn't obey logic, for it is useless to fight against it. Turn a blind eye and deaf ears to its command, and it shall return like sea waves time and again until fulfilling its purpose. Never question what you feel in your hearts but honor its beats consciously._

"Father is no more, now you may start your family and assume the throne of Bethmoora," Nuala said. "Once you produce at least one heir of pure blood for the throne, I may start mine. It is tradition."

"What tradition, Nuala? To take an oath on my life for Bethmoora on an incomplete crown?," Nuada said out loud and on an impulse, stood up from the couch. "There is no elf in the kingdom who wants to give me an heir. They fear me. I've turned into a monster, even for my own people. They won't allow the murderer of King Balor to rule, Nuala. That's reality. Bethmoora shall stay as it is. Without a king and underground and in that we both share the blame."

His sister stood up and adamantly rubbed her hands against her abdomen. She gave a turn to the room, lost in thought. She touched the cavity in her corset where for thousands of years she had carried her crown piece. She had sworn her father to protect it with her life and to ensure it wouldn't fall in the wrong hands. Wasn't that what she had done? However, in the process she had altered the order of her kingdom forever.

"We're in a unique situation in Bethmoora's history," the Princess said as a thought out loud. She faced her brother at the other extreme of the library. "I couldn't allow you to awaken the Golden Army and wage the massacre against humans once again. What's the honor in rebuilding Bethmoora on mountains of corpses and rivers of blood? We're not murderers. It's not our nature. We're protectors of everything and everyone. Mother Earth gave us immortality to be the guardians of life, not to become the executioners of the oppressor."

The Prince clenched his fists and let his head fall. Nuala crossed the room and arrived before him. She took his hands in hers and they looked into each other's eyes. He was divided in two. He wanted to renounce everything and at the same time, he didn't know what to do to save the kingdom.

"Perhaps it's time we reconsider our traditions for the betterment of Bethmoora," the Princess said.

A human agent suddenly erupted in the room.

"Miss Clair woke up," he announced with emotion in his voice.

The Prince ordered him to take them to her. The Princess took the border of her tunic and jogged to follow them. They entered the medical section. Abraham, Agent Krauss, a team of human doctors and the Elven druids were standing around the bed where Loreto laid. Nuada ran to her side. He took her hand in his and kissed it repeatedly. They looked into each other's eyes. Loreto caressed his cheek with her free hand and gave a weak smile. The fear and uncertainty still shone through her hazel eyes. The Prince noticed the intravenous catheter still connected to her. He stood up and questioned the team. Agent Krauss took a step forward.

"We made it," he said triumphantly.

Nuada looked at Abraham. _Tell me it's true,_ he pleaded telepathically.

"Miss Clair is out of danger. The cancer has been eradicated."

  
  



	23. Chapter 23

"How is this possible? What have you done to me? Are you sure?," Loreto asked anxiously and with an effort she pushed herself off the bed and sat on the border.

Instinctively, she touched her abdomen. The laparoscopy scars were still closed as before. She had no pain or discomfort in her core. Only the constant piercing in the back of her right hand bothered her. How long had she been unconscious? The sterile stench in the room twisted her stomach with anxiety. All eyes were on her. Nuada had arrived running to the room with his sister and a black-suited agent. The tall druids mingled among the lab white-coated doctors and remained grouped at the feet of her bed. Agents Sapien and Krauss were standing at each side of Loreto. The Prince was still by her side. He placed himself before her like a living shield and faced the rest.

"Answer," he challenged with an authoritarian tone. "What have you done to Loreto?"

One of the doctors walked to the opposite wall in the room where Loreto saw a work surface which reminded her of a laboratory. There were microscopes, flasks, test tubes, beakers, bunsen burners and electronic two-dish balances. Wearing rubber gloves, he removed a deep Petri dish from inside a small refrigerator and approached the Prince and her. He showed it with the lid on. Loreto didn't know what it was, yet her gag reflect watered her mouth at the content inside.

"This is a biopsy of the adenocarcinoma we removed from you," the doctor said. "Come with me."

Loreto tried to stand up, but for a single second the entire room turned around in circles. Nuada caught her in his arms and held her strongly by her waist. She clung to him, placing her arm around his back and they walked towards the small lab area. The druids, medical doctors and Agents Krauss and Sapien came near to watch. The doctor opened the small door of what seemed like a cross between a safe and a freezer. He entered the password, and the door released a click. Icy smoke emanated from the inside and spread through the surface to quickly evaporate. He produced a dish of similar dimensions. For a few seconds it was impossible to recognize what was in its interior because the condensation of the glass lid prevented vision. The doctor removed it and showed Loreto the content. It looked like a piece of moss of intense green and tiny vegetal hairs. The doctor dissected a sample of the adenocarcinoma and took a piece of moss with long tongs. He blended both samples separately and sucked out each of them with glass pipettes. In silence he gestured Loreto to the microscope, dubious, she neared herself to the eyepieces. The doctor poured a bit of the blended adenocarcinoma on the dish and next; he added some of the moss in a liquid state. What Loreto saw took her breath away. The substances reacted to the contact, a ballet of small particles from the second amount surrounded the first one at full speed. The blurry shapes of the first blended amount muted until completely changing their outside, then almost magically, they disappeared from the dish.

"What you see now is the cellular change," the professional said by her side. "This moss is the result of the Elemental's ichor. When it makes contact with the malignant tumour, its DNA copies itself to imitate carcinogenic cells and in a matter of seconds it destroys it from the inside."

"Agent Krauss ordered to take samples of the moss that grew from the Elemental's ichor," Agent Sapien added and looked at his German colleague.

"Judging by the analysis and tests we've done on the Elemental's ichor molecular and cellular structure, it seemed logical to me it could fight carcinogenic cells and that's how it has been," Agent Krauss said with solemnity and exhaled through his mechanical gills.

Loreto stood up in slow motion. Open-mouthed, she walked back to the bed. She let herself fall sitting on the border. She questioned everyone with her gaze. The forest god, the giver and destroyer of all life, had in its sap the key to eradicate cancer once and for all. The Prince had told her that specimen Agent Hellboy shot was the last of its kind. If they wouldn't have taken samples of its ichor moss when it died... The Prince arrived before her. The room was in utter silence. He raised her face by her chin and fixed his gaze with hers. Tears were piling up the corner of his golden eyes. Loreto also felt tears invading her and clouding her vision. He had perceived the metastasis inside her abdomen the previous late night. He had taken her immediately to his druids and had got the agency's help. Loreto shut her eyes tight and tried with all her strength to breathe in through her closed throat. The pressure in her chest was hyperventilating her.

"You saved my life," she sobbed in a choked whisper.

Nuada embraced her in his arms, trapping her against his chest. She clung to his back and let out the crying. In the background she heard the raspy deep voice of Agent Hellboy and that of Agent Sherman asking what was going on. Agent Sapien told what had just happened. Loreto released the pressure and separated from the Prince to look into his eyes.

"I owe you my life and I have no way to repay you," Loreto cried and took his big hands in hers against her abdomen. "Once you told me you were in debt with me for having helped you to escape this torture," she threw a look to Agent Krauss and ran her eyes over the rest of the special agents. "Now it is I who's forever in your debt but my forever is not as long-lived as yours," she lowered her head and sobbed in silence. "If I'm lucky I'll live to become a hundred years old and when I'm a grandma all wrinkly and hunched full of other diseases and by then I haven't been able to repay you even in part what you've done for me, what will I do? I have no power to change the situation of your people, I'm just a singer!"

The Prince hugged her again, this time he wrapped her with all his body. She heard him sobbing, almost choking. She buried her face in his dark coat and deeply breathed his intoxicating perfume which, like a protective caress, soothed her anxiety for an instant. She should have been jumping for joy and relief. She was lucky. Too lucky. If she would have never involved herself in the operation to catch him, she would have never known Nuada nor his people, the elves. She would have never known of Bethmoora. Now she would be under an invasive chemotherapy treatment, losing her hair and weight to the bones for the tiny hope of stopping the metastasis progress. How many people died of cancer in an hour around the world? Nuada squeezed her even harder against him. He was reading her thoughts. And suddenly she remembered. She separated from him and faced him, stupefied.

"Didn't you tell me the descendants of the Elemental, the forest demigods, have similar properties but in lesser intensity?," Loreto said and questioned with her gaze the group of druids and Princess Nuala, too.

The elves looked at each other and nodded.

Loreto burst in laughter like an epiphany. She walked to the center of the room.

"Don't you realize what you have in your hands? Humans would give anything for the definitive cure for cancer. Your Highness," she spoke to the Princess, "Nuada, you have the upper hand. Negotiate the return to the surface for Bethmoora with the cure for cancer as the bargaining coin!"

The twins looked at each other and then to the druids. The special agents also exchanged looks and remained quiet.

"Little one," the Prince whispered and with a sad half smile drawn on his lips caressed her cheek, "what would stop humans from taking our forest demigods by force once they learn of their properties and powers?," he said with sorrow in his voice. "With the Golden Army forever dormant, we have no way to defend ourselves against their missiles and bombs. What would stop humans from oppressing us like they do with animals and take what they want from us?"

"The map with the location of the Golden Army," Princess Nuala blurted out loud and approached both of them. "Only those of royal blood can access the royal chamber of Bethmoora. We could move our forest of the Elemental descendants into the depths of our original home. The only one beside us who would have access would be Anung Un Rama for being the son of the Fallen one," she said and looked at Agent Hellboy.

The agent was suddenly conscious that all eyes were laid on him.

"I'll drop by whenever I'm in the neighborhood, I guess," Red said with sarcasm and reluctantly extended his stone hand.

"We don't know whether the forest demigods ichor will produce a similar effect in human carcinogenic tissue as what was achieved here today with the Elemental's," said one of the druids.

"With Your Highnesses' permission, we could take samples of the specimen planted beneath New York and bring them here for analysis, comparison and tests," Agent Krauss suggested.

"To drain the Elemental descendants indiscriminately will end up killing them," added another druid.

"It wouldn't be necessary," Agent Sapien said, "our scientists could synthesize its molecular and cellular structure."

The Prince walked away from Loreto and towards the room exit door. He took the knob in his hand and opened it. He turned around one last time.

"Before doing anything, we ought to make sure our forest demigods won't suffer under such interventions," he said with authority. "Only if their ichor can be emulated artificially with the same properties and if it acts similarly against the disease that almost kills Loreto, shall I act accordingly and consider this idea," he looked piercingly into her eyes. "I would rather see Bethmoora fade than be subdued by humans. I will not make the same mistake my father did. I know the human race better than they know themselves. If they attempt to oppress us and take away from us the last thing we have, I shall not have any mercy."

  
  



	24. Chapter 24

Nuada found shelter in the agency's library and closed the doors behind him. He paced from side to side in the room and begged that no one barged in. He needed solitude to think. Everything was happening too fast and was out of his control. Loreto was finally out of danger. Her tears of gratitude left a deep mark in his heart. Her suggestion and the logic she had argued took him by surprise.

_And what if there was another way out? A month ago I didn't know about the existence of magical creatures, let alone of elves living side by side with us in this world. What if you introduce yourself to the world as the Prince of Elves and negotiate a peaceful solution to your people? The entire world would be just as fascinated with you as I am, you'd have people's support if you explain the situation._

He didn't know whether Loreto was too naïve or humans would truly have the greatness of spirit to negotiate face to face with no schemes about the return of Bethmoora to the surface. The idea wasn't bad, to use the healing power of the forest demigods to trade and bargain. However, something in his heart warned him of the risk. The rows of warriors in Bethmoora were scarce, without the Golden Army their disadvantage before the military advance of the humans would be humiliating. It would be suicidal. Nuada had seen the humans fail themselves too many times in history to believe now they'd act differently.

Besides, he still hadn't ascended to the throne to be the one in charge of leading the conversations. And what would they trade? A lousy piece of land where his once proud people lived with no honor or dignity? Above all things, they needed the place and time to heal. To suddenly live on the Earth would weaken them to death. All creatures in the kingdom, including the elves, had suffered the consequences of eons of life underground. There, wherever Bethmoora could be rebuilt on the surface, would also need an equally large space underground to alternate day and night hours in harmony with their fragile organisms. The druids could guide the process and perhaps, if the will existed, the human specialists could also lend their help. The Prince stopped his traces. He lost his gaze on the endless bookshelf. Why did he think the humans would want to help them? They were selfish, miserable, cruel beings. Loreto was also a human. She was all the contrary. How was that possible? In her heart dwelled a warm and blinding light that enticed him whenever he was in her presence. The mere fact she had suggested using the method that cured her cancer to place the elves in a powerful and attractive position before the humans said a lot about her kindness. She was already healed. Why would she care about the rest of humans who daily die from this disease?

The doors of the library opened and interrupted his thoughts. Nuada turned and found Loreto walking downstairs towards the center. She produced her mobile telephone device and showed the screen to him. Dubious, he took it in his hands and checked. There were pictures of a building in New York. It took him a while to recognize it at first, but seconds later he noticed it was the place where Loreto had residence. The photographs showed a bunch of people gathered at the outside with dozens of cameras pointing to her apartment. Loreto took her cell phone from his hand and returned it with other pictures. It was the two of them walking in each other's arms in search of a taxi that early morning close to sunrise.

"My agent wrote to me. Speculations are all over the media. They speculate about who's the man in the pictures, why we seemed so close and whether he's the one responsible for my disappearance," Loreto said in a flat tone and put away her cell phone in the back pocket of her pants. "I can't go back home. Not in these conditions. I want peace..."

"You'll come with me then," Nuada said, taking her hand and kissing its back.

  
  


They arrived at the abandoned warehouse at Brooklyn bridge escorted by the special agents. Nuala and the druids went back home with him. Reluctantly, he allowed the Agents Krauss and Sapien to take samples of the Elemental's descendants' ichor. He observed with delight as his sister reunited with their fellow elves and disappeared in her private chambers. Immediately her servants tended to her needs and prepared dinner for her. It was past midnight. Only then Nuada noticed he had eaten nothing since the previous night in Loreto's residence. It was time to return the favor. They entered his dwelling, and he ordered Arasne to prepare a dinner for two. The fall coldness going towards winter was felt penetratingly among and under the foundations in the guts of New York. The Prince gestured towards the armchair before the fireplace. Loreto sat down and apologized as she realized that it was the only couch available. One of his servants noticed the situation and quickly dragged one of the dining table chairs next to the fireplace. He took out his lance and sword belt and sat by her side. Straight away the orange halo of the crackling flames reached the both of them and enwrapped them in heat. Loreto stretched her hands towards the fire and rubbed them. Out of the blue, he saw her approaching him until she was only millimeters away from his mouth. Her sudden proximity surprised him. Loreto touched his cheek with the tip of her nose. A chill shook him all over. She laughed and returned to her seat.

"My feet are also frozen," she said and danced her boots on the floor. "Don't stare at me like that, I won't touch you with them. I don't want to turn you into an ice cube."

He couldn't help it but be moved. He let out the laughter kept for eons behind his vocal chords. He watched her with attention. The dancing flame shadows capriciously drew her features. She was gorgeous. A goddess. Her brown hair waves shone tiny rays of fire like glitter on her locks. He supposed that, as her eyes muted to green in the day, her hairs also shone bright under the sun. He'd never see her under the daylight. He'd never see the green in her changing eyes. The damage of millions of years on the elves' skin and eyes would take the same amount of time to heal. Loreto faced him and with no words asked him what happened.

"I can't read minds like you do," she said and stretched her hand towards him. "If you don't want to tell me, I understand. But if you want to let out what's bothering you, I'm listening."

Nuada took her hand and interlaced his fingers with hers. He squeezed and looked into her eyes.

_I love you._

Loreto blinked several times and tilted her head, puzzled.

"Did you just say you love me?"

"Yes," the Prince replied right away.

"It's not possible for you to love me already, we barely know each other. You don't know who I am. You don't know my traumas, my wounds, my pains. You don't know what I hope of life nor how I see the world. You don't know how vain I can be, you have no idea what makes me angry nor what offends me. You don't know whether we're compatible, whether we have the same interests, tastes..."

Loreto spoke disorderly. She let go of his hand and rubbed her face and hairs. She let out a loud exhale, deflating her shoulders, and stared at the crackling fire. Her demeanor hardened. Nuada took a deep breath.

"That's how humans see love," he said calmly, still with his hand stretched towards her with his palm pointing upwards.

Loreto faced him.

"How do you see it then?," she said with annoyance in her voice.

"I see the essential in your heart," the Prince made himself comfortable on the chair to face her. "You're mistaken, I do see your wounds. You're an open book, Loreto. Your heart carries old and new scars."

Loreto lowered her gaze and bit her lower lip. Nuada stood up, went to her and crouched before her. He touched her chest where her heart beat and closed his eyes. The cynicism was gaining terrain within her. He felt in her a hopeless bitterness at the mere mention of love. Nuada opened his eyes and faced her. There was skepticism and reluctance in her eyes. An impenetrable wall of protection.

"I know too well the road before you," the Prince said and took her hands in his. "Wounds don't close if we don't let them bleed freely on the outside. If we hide them in the darkness, the day will come when your heart will no longer recognize the light right before your eyes. Believe me, that has been my life for thousands of years. Until I met you. Loreto, you're the light that heals my wounds. May I be yours?"


	25. Chapter 25

Loreto was rendered speechless. The dryness in her throat stole her words. She looked at Nuada in the eye so close to her crouched before her. There was no place to hide. In any other situation she would have quickly thought of any sarcastic blunder to save herself from the moment, but now ideas abandoned her. The dilated irises inside his golden pupils looked at her, piercing deep into her soul. She swallowed hard. Perhaps she couldn't read minds like he did, maybe the wounds in her heart clouded too much her vision with a cynical look at the mere innuendo of love, yet somewhere within his amber eyes, Loreto believed to have found truth. With effort, she cleared her throat and licked her lips. They trembled as she attempted to speak.

"I don't know how to respond to that, forgive me," she mumbled and lowered her head.

The Prince softly kissed the back of her hand and stood up.

"Let's take a walk," he said and walked towards the exit of his home.

Dubious, Loreto followed him.

Nuada guided the road along paths and nooks. The ancient city foundations looked dark and eaten away by humidity and coldness. The stench of stagnant water mingled with that of fungus and garbage. It was almost pitched black. Loreto tripped and almost landed headfirst on the floor. Quickly, the Prince caught her in his arms and offered his hand for the rest of the walk. He seemed to know every route by memory. His eyes reflected the scarce light coming from some skylights high above. They shone like the alert and daring gaze of owls in the night. They arrived at the stairs that looked above the Troll market. They sat down on one of the steps. The busy underground bazaar knew no rest. Through its paths and aisles wandered creatures studying the offers by the shop owners while others shortened their roads to go directly to the stands. Like the first time she had entered there, bullet-wounded in the arms of Nuada, the air smelled like a mixture of incense, fries and sewers and the slow and constant melody of a hurdy-gurdy creature gave a strange festive and bizarre air to the landscape from above. Three small creatures of two heads ran upstairs and approached the Prince screeching. He stretched his hand, and smiling, he caressed their faces. The little ones neared Loreto and screeched among them, looking at each other puzzled. Then they returned to their way upstairs.

"Why do other humans speculate about you?," Nuada asked suddenly.

Loreto shook her head entranced watching the market and had to make an effort to focus. She took out her cell phone and checked again the pictures and articles about her. Some journalists even dared to connect the appearance of Loreto with Nuada the previous early morning with her disappearance a month ago. Others attributed a sectarian profile to the mysterious tall man of pale skin and white hairs with whom she had been seen. Loreto sighed exhausted and rubbed her face with the hand.

"Because people believe that, because I'm famous, they have a right to know all about me at all times," she said annoyed. "At first I enjoyed everything about being recognized on the street, getting favors and preferential treatment but with time it has become a prison. There is no place I go where I don't find paparazzi pointing their cameras at me," she sighed tiredly and hunched herself over her knees. "I only want to make my music in peace."

"What's a paparazzi?," the Prince asked and faced her frowning.

Loreto smiled at his expression of complete cluelessness. She wished to erase the slight furrow in between his non-existent eyebrows. She refrained from the idea.

" _Paparazzo_ singular, _paparazzi_ plural. It's Italian for _a despicable son of a bitch lacking all ethics and morals who makes profit taking pictures of famous people's private lives and selling them to the best bidder._ At this moment my house is at the aim of this kind of rat. Maybe they have already surrounded my parents," she muttered with anger and a sigh of frustration. "They're like vultures. Fame elevates you to a demigod status to the point no one dares to contradict you nor deny you a single thing, but should you make a mistake, oh poor you! They'll hit you when you're down like the vultures they are... They'd be capable of taking a photo of your own agonizing self if there's a good payoff." Loreto rubbed her face several times and scratched her scalp insistently. She let her head fall and let out a defeating sigh, desperate to escape her throat. "I'd ask you to use such a useful spell to help me camouflage my real look so I could take a taxi to the Upper East Side but that wouldn't solve the real problem and in any case I'd be a prisoner in my own four walls."

"You can stay here for as long as needed," the Prince said.

She looked into his eyes. She caressed his cheeks, barely brushing her hand through his skin, and whispered a thanks. Nuada closed his eyes and clung to her hand like a feline lacking love and cuddles. Loreto brushed his dark lips with her thumb and noticed she couldn't stop staring at them. The Prince opened his eyes enough and shortened the distance between them. He imitated her gesture and cupped her jaw and neck. To merely feel his touch on her skin shook her with a delicious chill which nested in her lower abdomen. He pulled her towards him with measured strength and they merged in a sweet, innocent, almost adolescent kiss. His warmth enwrapped her completely. The Prince licked her lips, kissing her deeply and slowly like that early morning in her apartment. Her heart inside her chest accelerated, beating against her vocal chords. They tangled their fingers in each other's hairs, completely lost. Suddenly they were no longer underground but floating far beyond the stratosphere. His flavour was intoxicating. The perfume his skin emanated was a raw natural force that blew her mind. Loreto lightly tugged at his hair, Nuada replied by venturing a hand under her hoodie to cup one of her breasts. She groaned from the back of her throat at his touch. She was melting away for him. They broke the kiss. They both panted heavily for air, still brushing their irritated lips. Nuada drew a devilish smile and fixed her with his gaze. His eyes shone bright of lust. The high-pitched screech of the tiny creatures going downstairs by her side woke her up from the spell and brought her back underground. They both laughed. The Prince said something in his native language. The creatures took a dramatic bow and continued their road towards the market.

"Bogarts," he said with a raspy voice and combed his hairs behind his slightly pointy ears with his fingers, "that's their name," and pointed at the tiny beings who in that moment were climbing on the hurdy-gurdy creature.

Loreto observed them. They seemed the magical equivalent to a puppy or bunny. They were playful and seemed to communicate through high noises like soft screeches.

"What did you say to them?," she asked and touched her cheeks with the back of her hands. They were still burning.

"Not to come up here, for their Prince wished to be alone with his guest."

They looked at each other. Nuada took her hand and kissed it by the wrist, then placed it on his cheek. Loreto swallowed hard, totally moved by the image before her eyes. From her chest an expansive warmth manifested, spreading to every corner of herself. It was an overwhelming sensation that bulged tears in her eyes. She leaped in his arms and squeezed him tight against her. If her idea to negotiate the return of Bethmoora to the surface would mean a risk for his people but specially for him, Loreto wouldn't be able to forgive herself. The mere idea to lose him pressed her heart with dread. Nuada embraced her by her back and waist and nestled her to his chest. He buried his nose in her hairs and took a deep breath. He reached her ear.

"I'll be fine, nothing will happen to me," he whispered and kissed her earlobe.

The tingling now was a shock wave and made every pore in her skin stand up. Loreto tangled her fingers in his long hairs and slowly they separated to face each other. She kissed his dark mouth with eyes tightly shut. She was ruined. There was no turning back. She didn't know how or when that feeling had grown within her, but she acknowledged it as real and true. It existed. It was a reality. She loved him. Logic dictated dopamine and endorphins were drugging her, her brain insisted in convincing herself that she could not love a being of another species so different from hers and who she knew so shortly. Every scar in her heart shrunk with fear at the memory of the pain of treason and disappointment. She didn't know whether she had any strength left to love like she did the first time. She had wasted her best years on men who never knew how to cherish her. She had wasted so much love in the wrong arms. Every past heartbreak, every betrayal, lie, and treason throbbed the open wound and warned her loudly to run away from him. She couldn't. For the first time in her adult life she felt she had come home. And her home was Nuada.


	26. Chapter 26

The air was dense and not exactly due to them being meters underground. The space between the Prince and Loreto, who sat a few centimeters to his right, seemed like an invisible truce loaded with anticipation. From the corner of her eyes, she saw him eating calmly and focusing on the delicious stew and steamed vegetables, seeds, nuts and cereals the elf Arasne had cooked. Loreto tried to focus on her plate. Her stomach was on pins and needles, a visceral dizziness there where her ribcage began. The aura Nuada emanated reached her like a communication beyond language. His intention floated in the air so evidently, surrounding her and enwrapping her completely in his halo. There was nowhere to escape, nor did she wish to. The memory of his kisses abruptly hit her and left a reddish tint on her cheeks and chest. She exhaled discreetly and drank a sip of her grape juice. They had barely exchanged words since their return from the heights of the Troll market. Regardless, the connecting thread of their thoughts had found a way to keep them in sync without verbal communication. Loreto was unsure whether she liked the idea the Prince could so easily read her mind. Normally she'd need years of intimacy with a man to feel comfortable with that level of exposure, but being in his company it seemed only natural to strip completely and let him in. She heard him breathing in control. He had hardly thrown a glance at her during the dinner. However, at all moments, in every second, Nuada hadn't left her. He was there in her head like a dream she couldn't place and in her heart, like the naïve illusion of a new beginning.

After dinner they sat before the fireplace. Arasne poured each of them a thick liquor of caramel color and retired from the chamber. Loreto smelled its content and immediately savoured the sweet fragrance the drink emanated. Nuada clashed his glass with hers and poured it down in one sip. He inhaled loudly through the teeth and went for the bottle. Loreto kissed the glass enough to drink a tiny sip. The explosion of flavor opened its way through her mouth burning with sweet spices every corner wrapping up her throat and palate. She exhaled surprised and immediately her body shook a heat wave as soon as the small sip of liquor made it to her stomach. She drank a bit more and shook her head to bare the alcoholic quake that blazed her. As she asked what it was, the Prince explained it was a special preparation for the royal family of Bethmoora. He took the bottle in his hands and presented it before their eyes. The container was on its own, a jewel. It was shaped like a water drop and its crystal was worked with hundreds of symmetrical carvings and engravings in circular forms which looked like ivy arms from the bottom to its neck.

"I don't know the recipe well," Nuada said casually looking at the bottle in his hands, "but I do know it includes dozens of flowers and herbs essences aged for centuries. This bottle is half a millennium old. As with everything else in Bethmoora, it has been kept in a corner gathering dust waiting for the day to return to glory."

His voice darkened. He poured more liquor in his glass and left the bottle on the table separating both seats before the fireplace.He fixed his gaze on the flames crackling and clenched his lips. Loreto wished to possess his telepathic power and find out what was going on through his mind in that moment. He had withdrawn to a dark corner of his psyche, or at least that's what his hardened demeanor allowed to infer. He was a unique being, Loreto thought and concluded that being there in his company and so close to this millenary secret world was luck and privilege only one-in-a-million could experience. She drank another sip of the delicious alcoholic elixir and closed her eyes to feel its slow progress down her larynx and esophagus.

"As long as Bethmoora remains underground and this," he gestured his surroundings with apathy, "is all the realms of our kingdom, I shall not ascend the throne," Nuada said in a low yet imperative tone. "Nuala expects me to take an oath on my life for Bethmoora upon an incomplete crown. If that's the case, the royal council shall have to accept an heir to the throne of mixed blood. Traditions count no more, the kingdom crumbles and I don't know whether I shall be able to bring it back to its former honor and glory."

Loreto took a few seconds to decipher the meaning of his speech. She looked at him frowning and tilted her head.

"Now my father is no longer here, my sister and I may start our own families. I'm the crown prince, so I have priority. Once I assume the crown of Bethmoora, my first duty shall be to provide an heir of pure blood to succeed me. Only then may Nuala start hers. Her descendants will be second in line to the throne after mine." The Prince exhaled, annoyed, rubbed his face and massaged his chin, lost in thought. "None of this has any importance now that the crown is forever incomplete," he said in a sigh loaded with frustration. "As if Bethmoora didn't have enough wounds already..."

Loreto blinked a few times and adjusted herself on the armchair to face the Prince at her left.

"You've lived an exceptionally long life. Are you telling me you've never married nor had children?," she said and was incapable of controlling the skeptical tone that creeped through her voice.

Nuada fixed her with his gaze. He denied with his head and drank a sip of liquor from his glass.

"You've never fallen in love?"

"That's different," he said dryly and lowered his gaze.

"Why wouldn't you have an heir of pure blood then? Isn't there any elf in the kingdom that wishes to be your queen?"

Nuada chuckled, a guttural laugh that left a bitter overtone hanging inthe air.

"They saw me murder my own father with a stab in his abdomen. For my people, I'm a monster. Perhaps they won't even allow me to rule, in which case Nuala shall have to succeed me. In any case, we're in a situation where it's impossible to follow traditions."

His countenance broke, yet the Prince clenched his jaw tight and focused his gaze on the flames in the fireplace. Behind his authoritarian and proud mask, something cracked, which Loreto guessed, was critically important for him. His hands were tied. He was a Prince without a kingdom, palace or crown. An entire life of thousands of years waiting for the opportunity to lead his people to crush against a closed door. Loreto observed her surroundings. New York's sewers and gutters were no worthy place for a Prince in his class. Not even the grandest and tallest palace in the world would do justice to his kingdom. For the first time Loreto understood why Nuada had taken justice in his own hands. This place and all the underground cities of Bethmoora in the world were nothing more than prisons for people destined to rule over the Earth. He had spent an eternity swallowing the bitter rage of an undeserved sentence. His torn aura roared the pain and expanded through the entire place like a harrowing scream under water. Loreto felt her throat closing and her eyes bulging with tears. She took a deep breath and drank a long sip of the rich-flavored liquor. She looked at him, powerless about his suffering. She was so small and insignificant before his dilemma.

"Prince?," she called with a shaky thread of voice.

Nuada raised his gaze and faced her abruptly. Loreto swallowed hard.

"If the experiments result between the Elemental's descendants ichor and human carcinogenic tissue are positive, will you accept to negotiate with humans the return of Bethmoora to the surface of the Earth?"

Nuada smirked without humor. His demeanor of complete hopelessness broke her heart for him.

"Do I have any other option?," he replied in a deadpan. He stretched his open hand towards her. Loreto took it. "You are noble, Loreto Helena María Cranwell," he said and drew a weak smile on his face. "You should return to your normal life. I have nothing at all to offer you other than uncertainty and scarcity," he took on the surroundings with a contemptuous gaze. "You're healthy now, you have the rest of your life ahead of you."

Loreto broke just like that. She swallowed the tears in silence and squeezed his hand in her small one. The warmth of his skin, the touch of his rough palm, the embrace of his long fingers. It was too late. Which normal life? To put her health at stake to fulfill an agenda of events to keep on securing the record label their generous piece of commission for her music? She contemplated her own life choices and compared it with the Prince's. She just wished to keep on making music and make it available to her public, yet she felt ashamed to have taken part in the gears of the musical industry for fifteen years. What was left but the brief moments onstage in real contact with the people? However, all else, the interviews, photo sessions, attendances to television shows, smiling like a monkey in a zoo... She hunched and placed a silent kiss on the back of his hand. Nuada trembled and questioned her with his amber gaze.

"I'd take you with me and we'd live in the shadows for the rest of our lives, I wouldn't care," Loreto whispered against his skin, she rose of eyes and found the Prince disarmed by disbelief facing her. "You won't leave your people behind and I wouldn't expect you to do so either. Firstly, you own yourself to them. The choice is mine then, if you want me by your side."

"And I'd make you my queen, Loreto," Nuada said and kissed the back of her hand several times. "But this is no place to start a family, nor is it worthy of you."

He stood up and took a knee to the floor before her while holding her hand. He looked deeply into her eyes.

"If I manage to make Bethmoora to return to the surface with dignity and, against all odds and my biggest skepticism, we achieve an understanding with humans to live in peace, would you do me the honor of becoming my queen and give me an heir?"

_If that's the case, the royal council shall have to accept an heir to the throne of mixed blood._ Loreto understood then his words of a few minutes ago. He had always wanted it that way. Nuada could not only read her mind but also her heart. Her heart leaped of joy and simultaneously shrunk, filled with apprehension.

"Why would you want a human wife? I only have but a few decades more to give you and then I'll die like all the others of my race," Loreto uttered choking through the knot in her throat. "I won't be able to be there for you your whole life, and one day you'll forget me when I've already turned into ashes."

Nuada kissed her hands over and over again.

"For the same reason I couldn't predict Nuala would destroy her crown piece. Destiny isn't written and not even thousands of years of immortal life can prepare for its quandaries." The Prince dried Loreto's tears rolling down her cheeks and brushed her trembling lips with his thumb. He caressed her with his eyes filled with kindness and devotion. "Gold melts with fire, the sun burns the skin, music enlightens all darkness, love heals the thirst for vengeance and gives a new opportunity, and the heart falls in love with whom it shouldn't."


	27. Chapter 27

"The results of the tests speak for themselves. What the Elemental's ichor achieved with the adenocarcinoma biopsy of Loreto Clair in seconds, the sap of its descendants does it in a matter of days. Five, to be precise. The forest demigods possess in their DNA the cure for cancer."

The human specialist in the medicine of his kind spoke with confidence and enthusiasm in his voice. He searched for support in his peers and all nodded at the same time. Agents Krauss and Sapien neared the Prince and Princess.

"We could make more tests if we get more and different types of carcinogenic tissue but we're positive the results will be the same," Abraham said and gestured his emphasis with his web-footed hands.

"If Your Highnesses agree, we'll inform Washington and begin conversations. Doctor Manning and I offer ourselves to mediate the negotiations in Your best interest," Agent Krauss said and clicked the heels of his metal boots with solemnity.

Nuada searched Loreto with his gaze in the medicine department of the B.P.R.D. They looked at each other for what seemed like a whole five seconds. Everyone noticed the weight of their connection. The Prince focused then on his sister. They took each other's hands and closed their eyes. Doctor Manning, the Elven druids, human doctors, Agents Hellboy, Krauss, Sapien, Shermann and Loreto Clair watched in suspense and with fascination.

Only today after five days of the discovery that the Elemental's ichor could cure cancer, like it had showed the complete eradication of Loreto Clair's metastasis, one of its descendants, the forest demigods were extracted from the small and dense Elven underground garden, showed equal result on carcinogenic tissue. The doctors had then asked Agent Sapien to telepathically communicate the news to Princess Nuala. Agents Hellboy and Sherman went to pick them up in the feigned garbage truck to the abandoned warehouse at Brooklyn bridge. The human doctors had also required the presence of the Elven druids to verify the results.

Since the cancer eradication procedure on Loreto Clair was done in the agency's medical department, the singer had been staying in the private chambers of Prince Nuada in Bethmoora beneath New York. The singer's situation after her recovery didn't look hopeful at all. Headlines of written press as well as reports on news shows declared her as missing after having been briefly seen in the early morning a few days before in the surroundings of her residence in the Upper East Side in the company of Prince Nuada. For a lot of journalists and detectives investigating her whereabouts, the Prince was the first suspect of her disappearance. Photographs of the Prince among fans of the singer at the side entrance of the Grand Theater after her first residence concert more than a month ago had managed to filter to the mainstream media linking the enigmatic man with her mysterious absence. Next to this, the fact that in the last days a bunch of pictures circulating the Internet of the Prince carrying Loreto Clair in his arms with a bleeding bullet wound in the surroundings of Connecticut had increased the hysteria and the conspiratorial aura about her disappearance. The talk was about a kidnapping for reasons so far not clarified. The world reaction was unanimous. Both her fans as also her music colleagues demanded justice and feared the worst. An army of paparazzi were filming and taking photographs nonstop day and night around the residence of Loreto Clair's parents in Los Angeles. Hundreds of flower bouquets and pictures of the singer decorated the entrance of her building in the Upper East Side of New York and fans gathered in its surroundings, singing her songs in tears.

The Elven twins separated and opened their eyes. The Princess produced from the pocket of her long tunic the cylinder containing the map with the location of the Golden Army. She opened the lid and took out a rusty-looking piece of paper. The vanished colors barely drew the borders, creating an empty circular space. Puzzled, she saw it against the halogen lights of the roof, but she only saw stains similar to those produced by humidity. The Prince took the cylinder from her hands and threw it to Agent Sherman.

"Look at the engravings. You know what to do," he said.

The agent activated the fire of her hands. Within seconds the cylinder was glowing incandescent red. She threw it back to the Prince, and he caught it midair. He took the piece of paper from his sister's hands, supported it on the wall and rolled the cylinder on it, still burning. The drawing that was revealed made everyone gasp in surprise. A small _mappa mundi_ with three moons and a sun in each of the cardinal directions. Around it there was an inscription in goblin language. The printing fitted perfectly in the piece of paper.

"Here is the Golden Army," the Prince said and pointed at the symbol of Bethmoora's royal chamber's aperture in the middle of the upper half of the map.

"What does the Golden Army have to do with this all? You can't awaken it anymore, Prince!," doctor Manning shouted and looked in desperation to everyone in the room.

"There we'll move our Elemental's descendants forest away from human claws," Nuada said in defense and placed himself in between his sister and the agency's director.

"Before speaking with the human leaders, we must ensure our last reserve of millenary forest is protected against misappropriation," the Princess added and took a step aside away from the Prince. She neared doctor Manning. "My brother and I wish to live in peace with you, humans. Please, in the name of Bethmoora, I ask your help as director of his agency to move the Elemental's descendants to our original home. The forest demigods must survive the trip and transplantation whatever it takes."

  
  


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The coordinates of the cylinder showed the location of the Golden Army in the County of Antrim in Northern Ireland. The operation required a special permission from the Townhall of New York to demolish the pavement just above the small dense Elven forest. Tom Manning justified the action to the community and the media as a deep cleaning of New York's sewers and distracted the press with similar statements during the days the excavation required. When they managed to reach the forest, B.P.R.D. special and human agents closed the perimeter to curious eyes with tall walls and a protective roof. They built an access gate for the agency's transportation and necessary machinery to begin the transplantation. Trucks came and went, transporting the delicate trees to the agency until they moved the last specimen. Each tree was between fifteen and thirty meters tall and their roots extended a few meters in diameter. The only way to move them and ensure their integrity was to use trucks with the largest and longest hopper possible. They could move the trees of middle and small size in groups by the trucks, however the large ones, only one at a time which caused the operation to take a little over two months to be completed. In the sewers, the perimeters around the druid's chamber where the forest was, was covered completely with a thick canvas of dense tissue to stop the passing of sunlight. The Prince and Princess informed the magical inhabitants of Bethmoora the origin and reason for such a procedure. The reactions were varied. The least happy with the news were the Trolls who claimed not wanting to leave an urban area so rich in missing children as New York, for that was their main diet. The royal twins argued then, that what they were agreeing with the humans would benefit the entire clan. Slowly the faces showed the hope for eons oppressed to return to the surface.

Prince Nuada and Princess Nuala flew to Antrim in a private jet of the agency specially conditioned for them in company of Agents Hellboy, Sherman and the Elven druids. The windows were hermetically sealed to prevent the sunlight to filter through. Even though they made sure to fly at night, the almost ten-hour flight touched the runway of the private airdrome in Belfast well passed early morning, so they waited the entire day inside the aircraft parked in the hangar until sunset. With the map in hand and under the moonlight they found the entrance to the royal chamber of Bethmoora in the wasteland at meters from the dramatic cliff towards the sea. The goblin master engineer creator of the Golden Army recognized His and Her Royal Highnesses and the group of druids at meters of distance, and slowly he neared, limping his rudimentary transportation with a smile on his face. Prince Nuada ordered the goblin to open the door and introduced the special agents as friends of Bethmoora. The stone giant rose from the ground and revealed in its center the threshold entrance. The Princess explained to the master goblin why they were there and what would happen in the following weeks. Agent Hellboy introduced himself with his real name, Anung Un Rama, and acknowledged the place along with his partner Agent Sherman. Her slender frame already showed a shy yet unmistakable three-months pregnancy belly. Her partner Red tried to talk her out of doing the trip to Northern Ireland fearing it might alter her health and the gestation of his firstborns but the agent insisted, arguing she couldn't nor wanted to stay in New York without taking an active part in the return of Bethmoora to the surface. The agents stayed in Antrim to ensure the entrance to the transportation that would start flying the Elemental's descendants from New York. The Elven druids remained in the royal chamber awaiting the specimens to ensure the transplantation and adaptation to their new environment. The goblin master engineer managed his people to begin moving the dormant soldiers of the Golden Army to make room for the future millenary forest in the organic soil of the royal chamber.

Meanwhile, in New York, due to the different conspiratorial theories that circulated the media trying to explain the whereabouts of Loreto Clair and the reason for her disappearance, the B.P.R.D. Director Tom Manning, decided the most sensible thing was for the singer to move in to the agency's facilities indefinitely until the logistic and strategic operation of Bethmoora's return to the surface would have taken place. Loreto would be then pivotal to explain her successful case of cancer eradication thanks to Elven medicine that would clean Prince Nuada's wrecked image seen with her and caught in pictures and, for the first time, would tell the truth about her disappearance. To protect the safety of the royal Elven Prince and Princess from the possible effects of the excavation in the New York sewers and to save them from attacks or future public siege by the media, doctor Manning also invited them to move in to the agency until they had a definitive place to call home.

Once back in New York, Agent Krauss and doctor Manning arranged an interview with the President of the United States of America, the director WHO, the general secretary of the UN, the President of the European Commission, Prince Nuada and Princess Nuala. The authorities arrived incognito to the agency under a strict protocol of confidentiality. The director of the agency and leader of the special agents introduced the case of the Elven kingdom of Bethmoora and their demand for a just and peaceful return to the surface after eons forced to live underground. They also presented the successful case of Loreto Clair's cancerous metastasis, which was completely eradicated thanks to the DNA belonging to one of the deities of the Elven and magical clan. They carried on inviting in the team of doctors, scientists and Agent Sapien along with the singer who enlightened the world leaders about the experiments done on biopsy of carcinogenic tissue exposed to the influence of the forest demigods ichor on the magical millenary flora under the control of the elves. For the U.S. President the existence of Bethmoora was no news, for he was aware of the underground world beneath New York after decades of close relationship with the B.P.R.D. However, for the rest of the authorities the meeting turned out to be revealing and mind-blowing. The presence of Agents Krauss and Sapien disturbed the world leaders, not really knowing what they were nor how they could exist in the world without their knowledge. Doctor Manning and Agent Krauss lead most of the conversation, explaining the demands of the Bethmoora clan. Prince Nuada hadn't accepted to surrender his lance nor his sword, which he had on himself. He watched everything in silence, with a hardened demeanor and growing impatience. At his right, Princess Nuala studied each and every one of the human leaders, unsure whether they would be able to aid them in their fight. Each authority observed them with a mixture of fascination, dread and curiosity. In contrast to them, the royal Elven twins looked even more distant in their timeless age and race.

Agent Krauss began explaining the historical context of the kingdom of Bethmoora and the damage thousands of years of forced life underground had caused to their organisms. Suddenly, the Prince pushed himself off the chair producing it to screech its metal legs on the tiled floor. The humans leaped in fear and contemplated with horror in their faces his proud height and the sharp blades he carried along.

"By command of the leader of this country, Agent Krauss kept me prisoner under torture for almost four complete weeks in order to obtain the crown of Bethmoora, the key to awaken the Golden Army, our armed line of defense," he said with authority in his voice and pierced the German agent and the U.S.A. President with his eyes. He spoke to the latter. "Human, you allowed torture to get yet another army for your headquarters. What will you be able to do to provide your fellow people with the definitive cure to the disease that kills most humans in the world?"

The room rendered in total silence. The authorities lost all colors from their faces. Princess Nuala touched her brother's arm, but he barely acknowledged the gesture with a quick glance in her direction. She stood up and held her hands on her golden diamond-shaped corset.

"This is a unique opportunity to live in peace with one another on Earth," she said with her soft tone of voice. She spoke to each of the leaders. "We need time and space to heal just like humans who survive cancer need to recover their organisms after the invasive chemotherapy procedure. We do not wish war. We're the Sons Of The Earth, we were created to protect life and the planet. Our roads have already crossed in the past and much blood has been spilled due to the lack of understanding. Please, do not make the same mistake your ancestors did. We have seen with our own eyes generations of human leaders like you fail to their word and disrespect the truce our father, King Balor, offered you." The Princess took the Prince's hand before the authorities' astonished faces. "Immortal life is a solitary and cruel one. Every hope to live in peace and return to the surface has been destroyed over and over again. I beg you to understand my brother's animosity."

The Prince let go of her hand abruptly and walked in front of the meeting table. As a reflection, doctor Manning and Agent Krauss made way for him. The group of doctors and scientists walked towards the back of the room as if not wanting to have anything to do with the negotiation. Agent Sapien and Loreto Clair retracted to the corner one step away from the door. Nuada held his sword still holstered at his waist. The authorities looked even more anxious with the second.

"This isn't charity, Nuala," he said cuttingly. He focused on the leaders before him. "The source of the cure which healed Loreto Clair is very well kept from human claws, for there where it now takes roots only those of noble blood may enter. The thing is simple: will you allow your fellow humans to suffer and die of cancer as long as you keep on profiting from intentionally poor medical procedures or will you for once in history do the right thing?"


	28. Chapter 28

Over two weeks after the meeting with the human authorities, the Prince still had gotten no news about their decision. The waiting was killing him. He wasn't made to sit and wait. The large facilities of sterile lines and lifeless colors that was the agency were sealed from floor to roof to prevent any sunlight to get in and such design wasn't necessarily due to his or his sister's presence as guests. According to what he had learned after weeks living among human and special agents, this agency was a secret service for paranormal investigation and defense and functioned under the knowledge and with the finance of the government of the United States, yet in complete confidentiality. Although the existence of Agents Hellboy, Sapien, Sherman and Krauss seemed to already be of public knowledge despite the criteria and best judgement of the director, the human Tom Manning, the media in their insatiable morbid thirst to pry into everything and everyone had already taken enough pictures of the special agents to verify to the community their existence as beings with special powers. Apparently, the esteem and acceptance towards the special agents by the humans was directly proportionate to the level of aid they could provide to the society. And occasionally, as the time the demon Hellboy shot the Elemental, not even the best performance stuck to the commands to protect the citizens could secure them their gratitude and acknowledgement. Much the contrary. What future awaited Bethmoora once they returned to the light?

Whenever the Prince imagined himself returning to the royal chamber of Bethmoora, never, not even in his most unsettling nightmares, did he do it in the context of their visit to their native land a few weeks ago along with Nuala, the druids and Agents Hellboy and Sherman. Many times he dreamed of returning to Antrim carrying the complete crown of Bethmoora on his head. _I am Prince Nuada, Silverlance, leader of the Golden Army. Is there anyone here who disputes my right?_ He'd never be able to say that sentence out loud, which by birthright was only his to utter. The golden soldiers slept dormant in their passive state as giant mechanical eggs. As he walked by the sides he couldn't help caressing their rough surface marked by harmless human swords. That had been the last battle of the superb soldiers, the great war against humans thousands of years ago. The one that covered all fields of Bethmoora with rivers of human blood. The master goblin recruited his people and in a matter of a few days, over two-thirds of the royal chamber had been freed from the soldiers to make space for the transplantation of the Elemental's descendants. Where for millennia slept the weapon capable of exterminating humanity, today took the roots of the forest demigods whose ichor could cure cancer, one of the most threatening diseases for humans.

Loreto was another guest of the agency. Already almost four months had passed since she accepted to be the bait to catch him. Her thoughts bounced in all directions. Her heart was still with her parents, knowing the suffering her disappearance was causing them. Sometimes he felt her drifting in her mind about her life choices. She thought about her music like one misses a loved one in the distance, however she despised the industry that squeezed her like yet another product. The only luxury she had allowed herself was the petition of an upright piano in her bedroom. As he walked through that aisle outside her closed door he used to hear her play, yet her voice remained silenced. She hadn't sung in months. They bumped into each other in the grand library that served as a place for leisure and gathering for the special agents. As the Prince observed with surprise and growing uncertainty the deep connection between Agent Sapien and his sister the Princess, he also noticed Loreto distantly, in spirit. Her life was on a standby, awaiting. Just like his. Agents Hellboy and Sherman would become parents in a matter of a few months more. The pregnancy of the pyrokinesic human progressed normally and the red demon went out of his way to tend to her needs and wishes. He felt curiosity about how they could have built a relationship being so different from one another. Nuala and the amphibian agent spent hours in each other's company. They talked about music, history, poetry, literature, travels. They held each other's hands and remained in silence for long periods of time, in deep telepathic connection. Loreto barely uttered words. Most of the time she approached the library to explore its rich book collection and to borrow a few to immediately return to her private room. She evaded his presence and gaze, yet Nuada was in her mind and heart. He knew it. The few times in those weeks he had had the chance to connect with her, her message was clear: she loved him, yet her complete uncertainty about the future prevented her from showing it. Her proximity hurt at an entire universe of distance.

Nuada spent the days training in the underground section of the agency. There he counted not only with the space to do so but also there was a group of machines designed by humans to lift weights and work out. Rarely did he ever spot a human agent down there to train. When he wasn't training, the Prince wandered through the endless aisles lost in thought. Sometimes he entered one of the many offices and labs to watch. In one of them he found a structure that looked familiar. He needed a few seconds to recognize the goblin mechanics of a safe box. It reminded him of his embedded one in the rock wall of his chambers beneath New York and how jealously he had saved the two parts of the crown away from the humans, certain he would get the third one from Nuala. Everything had been in vain. This one that, still sealed, laid on the work surface was one of the few safes extracted from the royal chamber of Bethmoora in Antrim following the advice of the wise druids. As they arrived in New York, the humans had requested his permission to analyze the goblin technology to emulate its design in their own inventions. Nuada didn't give much importance to that and agreed. Like everything else in the kingdom,he guessed in its interior there were millenary treasures destined either for him or Nuala when one of them ascended to the throne. Not only he and his sister awaited now for the reply of the human leaders with their destiny in their hands, the whole of dusty and rusty Bethmoora also did.

The human Tom Manning and the German Agent Krauss approached the library one day with good news. Agents Hellboy, Sherman, Sapien, his sister Nuala, Loreto and he paid attention.

"We've received news from Washington," the German agent said and gestured his hands in solemnity. "The authorities that took part in the meeting with His and Her Highnesses had communicated their decision to the U.S.A. President."

"Will you finally spit it out, fish-tank?," the red demon muttered with his mouth filled with chocolate and cereal bar.

Agent Krauss exhaled loudly through his mechanical gills and shook his head.

"They accepted the deal," he finally said.

Nuala held Nuada's hand, and they looked into each other's eyes. The hope in their golden pupils was bulging with tears. She smiled and held him tightly against her. The Prince battled the tears and the smile that insisted in manifesting on his lips. As they separated, Loreto sitting before him stretched her hands towards him. He took them and interlaced his fingers with hers. They looked into each other's eyes and for an instant everything around them disappeared.

_I'd take you with me and we'd live in the shadows for the rest of our lives, I wouldn't care._

_And I'd make you my queen, Loreto._

"There's only one detail," the human Tom Manning said, breaking the spell between them. "The director of the WHO has commissioned a thorough study of the forest demigods ichor to a select group of scientists and doctors under confidentiality agreement to verify its healing power and whether it can be applied to all degrees and types of human and animal cancer. They must also establish whether its properties can be successfully synthesized. Only then will she give her vote to begin the election of a territory to be the future realm of Bethmoora. They'll arrive in the upcoming days."

"I'm certain their results will be positive like ours," Agent Sapien said with enthusiasm and turned to face Princess Nuala.

Nuada saw them holding hands. His sister seemed happy by his side.

The positive answer from the human authorities did not ease his restlessness. Would they actually have a voice in the election of which corner of the world would be assigned for them? Night came and all human and special agents had retired to their private rooms in the facility. He couldn't sleep. Night was not a moment to rest. Night called for action. That's how it had been for eons and it was too late to change habits. Nuala, on the other hand, seemed to have adapted pretty well to the humans schedule. The Prince walked through the aisles, unable to ease his thoughts. The condescending nature of the negotiations, the charity of taking pity on them and allowing them to return to the surface, the indignity of having to accept scraps from a lower race than the elves... He didn't want to think like that, Loreto was human and somehow she had pierced deeply in his heart bewitching him completely.

The chords of the piano he suddenly heard stopped his traces on the spot. He knew the melody. He neared the door. On the other side was Loreto. She played the piano. _**Misty**_ by Ella Fitzgerald. One spring night in 1942 he had listened to the great dame of Jazz sing that song live from the attic of the Grand Theater in New York. Loreto remained silent. The piano accompanied the lyrics that awaited for her voice that never came. Nuada leaned his forehead and opened hands on her closed door. He sighed, exhausted. The piano ceased. He knocked three times and moved away. Loreto was surprised to see him there. She let him in.

"Play it again, please," he said and looked at the instrument against the wall in front of her bed. He faced her before him. "Sing for me."

Loreto looked up to face him with a tight frown and tilted head. She went to the desk and dragged the chair next to the piano stool. She gestured for him to take a seat by her side. The Prince sat at her left, centimeters away from the keys and from her small and skilled hands going through them. She emanated a soft flower perfume that entered his nostrils like a spell. The melody came back to life; the notes resounded trapped in the wooden body of the piano and escaped, filling the place with their sweet color. Her voice trembled at first, so did her lower lip. There was a heartbreaking yearning which subtly was filtering through the words like a message in between the lines. Loreto closed her eyes. After months, she was singing again. Her eyelids shivered, her voice sunk into a thin yet strong thread that connected the words like one emotion, one torrent.

The notes resounded on the roof and floor and vanished in the silence. Nuada watched her spellbound. Loreto raised her hands from the keys and placed them on her lap. She turned to her left and faced him. A betraying tear escaped the corner of her eyes, leaving her exposed. Nuada caught it with his thumb. He caressed her cheek. Warm, soft. She closed her eyes and clung to his hand. She moved slightly backwards and removed a few fluffs from her pants, near her thighs.

"I wanted to include this song in one of my residence concerts at the theater like a small tribute to Mrs Ella," she said like a bittersweet anecdote and went through a few keys on the piano. "I wanted to play a few classics like a personal luxury."

"I missed your voice."

Loreto looked into his eyes. She traced his profile with the tip of her middle finger, barely brushing from his forehead, going down the bridge of his nose, his lips and ending on his chin. She smiled slightly. Nuada cupped her face with both hands and kissed her mouth with his eyes closed. They both sighed and melted in a slow kiss like a shy caress. They separated and crushed the tip of their noses. Loreto shook her head and brushed her nose with his. She grinned. Nuada let out a chuckle. It lasted but a second. He let his head fall and exhaled, deflating his shoulders. Loreto raised his face and asked without words what was going on.

"Am I doing right to place the destiny of my people in the hands of human leaders? What if they give us a piece of land that already belongs to a community and we have a conflict with them? What leftovers will they give us?"

Nuada stood up and paced the length of the room. Then he paced back repeatedly like a caged lion.

"My experience tells me not to trust, they'll betray us. I know them, once humans get too much power they forget about deals, values and principles and sell to the best bidder."

His voice became louder. Loreto stood up from the piano stool and went by his side. She placed herself in his path and forced him to face her.

"Do you know where I found the crown piece of Bethmoora my father mistakenly gave the humans? In an auction house."

Loreto didn't know how to respond. She lowered her gaze to the floor. Nuada moved away from her and turned to the wall, enraged. He turned back to Loreto.

"For them it was nothing more than a piece of archaic gold but for me...," he rubbed his face roughly. "That was _my_ crown! _My_ birthright!"

"Princess Nuala said you are the Sons Of The Earth, created to protect life, is that right?," Loreto asked and searched his eyes insistently.

The Prince frowned and nodded in silence.

"That's your original call then, isn't it?"

Nuada nodded and watched her closely.

"You're giving humanity the cure for one of the diseases that most people kill in the world. You're protecting us. Because we're not powerful like you are. We don't know what to do with so much power if we ever get to have it in our hands. We need a hundred lives to reach the level of wisdom necessary to exert power with judgment. Not all of us are like this, some of us don't want power. But the few humans who do are capable of killing, betraying, lying and stealing to get it. Their time on Earth is only a few decades compared to yours, however much damage those sons of a bitch do!"

The Prince walked to her and invaded her with his presence. He looked at her, so small and yet so giant at the same time.

"For whatever it's worth, I apologize in the name of all of my race who one day hurt you and your people," Loreto looked him in the eyes and took his big hands in hers. "Forgive everyone who ever hurt you, those who ever captured you, mistreated you, tortured you for they didn't know what they were doing. In their infinite ignorance and pettiness, many perhaps never noticed what they were doing was wrong."

She hugged him by his waist and buried her face in his chest. Nuada embraced her, enveloping her with his body.

"You must learn to forgive, my love, so that your heart heals, so you can love again, so you make space for beautiful things. Forgive to start over," she whispered against his chest and squeezed him.

The Prince let the tears roll freely down his cheeks and sobbed in silence. His chest cracked like a rock victim of a drought of millennia. The crying robbed him of air, the wrenching scream that could never escape bulged against his throat. He squeezed Loreto in his arms and wished to merge with her in one. He released the pressure enough to face her. She also cried. Her hazel eyes looked at him long and drowned in tears. He cupped her face.

"You speak like the future queen of Bethmoora. I love you, Loreto."

"And I you, Nuada."


	29. Chapter 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mind you, here comes a sex scene which, for theme and plot purposes, I wrote in a very romantic and decent way. So if that's fine with you, read on. If not, then you can skip to the next chapter.

It started as a small gesture. As the tentative notes of a sonata. The touch of his lips on her neck, the warm and wet kiss on her collarbone, the slight pull of her sweater by the shoulder. Nuada enwrapped her with his presence, impossible to ignore. Loreto let herself be embraced by his warmth and musk. He searched her mouth with agonizing thirst and hunger. He attracted her by her waist and raised her to his level. He took her in his arms. Loreto felt like flying and hanging from his neck merged to his insatiable mouth. They landed on the bed blended as one in the darkness behind their completely sealed eyes. The music of his agitated breath, his hands exploring her skin, undressing her. She untied his silk belt, the brooch of his chest piece, the buttons of his coat. There was time and simultaneously, their patience was not enough to wait to extinguish the fire in her loins for him. Loreto moaned at the delicious tickle that attacked her sex like a lashing of pleasure. Every pore in her skin stood at attention. Every cell in her body was in tune with him. He opened his way down her abdomen and kissed her skin as he opened her jeans. His calmness was torturing her. Loreto pulled him to her. She turned him on the mattress and mounted him. She opened his coat and took it off, throwing it to the floor. She kissed his neck, licked his chest and abdomen at the music of the choked groaning of Nuada. Loreto noticed the big scars crossing his chest and biceps. She brushed them with the tip of her fingers, fearing to hurt him, and questioned him with her eyes. Nuada grabbed her by the nape and ate her mouth eagerly. She allowed her hands to wander through the chiseling geography of his muscles until she reached his trousers. His erection pulsed hard against her abdomen and through the fabric. She ventured to caress it through his pants and made him moan at such a simple touch. He turned her on her back and skillfully got rid of the rest of her clothing and his. To feel his naked body on her finished melting her away completely. The river between her legs ran now out of its bed. He ventured a hand into her depths with his amber pupils focused on her. His dilated iris penetrating her soul, his forehead supported on hers, his long bleached hair closing the way to the outer world around. His intrusion took her by surprise, and yet a humongous hunger for him invaded her. She begged him with her greedy mouth, tangling her tongue with his in a frenzied swaying. He separated from her for a moment, looked her piercingly under his prominent frown like a predator about to devour his prey. He sunk himself in her slowly until she felt him filling her in completely. Loreto arched her back towards the sky and groaned away. She embraced him tight by his back and buttocks with her arms and legs and her entire soul swollen with love for him. She received him within her with all she had to give him. She kissed his dark mouth in between guttural moaning and with her heart beating wildly. His charges were tentative and torturous at first to soon allow a merciless debauchery. His weight on her suffocated her, she panted for air and groaned in his ear every time louder, unable to stop the overwhelming pressure his deep thrusts were provoking. She clung to his strong shoulders like a ship wrecked in the middle of the ocean. Nuada moaned rusty and faltered to her ear, the drops of his sweat landed on her forehead. Their bodies well lubricated by sweat continued their tight dance like a single being battling against itself. Nuada licked her salty neck, went down to her breasts and attacked her hard nipples with teeth and tongue. His rhythm intensified even more, in her core the countdown began about to boil. The whole universe ceased to exist, the Earth to turn, the clock to tick. The waves of orgasm paralyzed her in an apnea suspended between exquisite pain and excruciating quiver. Three thrusts later Nuada came caught in delicious agony written on his features. He panted loud inside her mouth. Inside his eyes, in the abyss of his dilated iris, Loreto saw her reflection. Tousled hair, blushed, irritated mouth, the pearly sweat glow on her skin. She laughed. She laughed like venting. Nuada imitated her. He still shivered very deep inside her. He moved out of her and collapsed on his back on the mattress.

  
  


*

  
  


"Since when do you have these scars? What happened to you?," Loreto whispered against his skin clung to his chest.

She kissed the marks, barely brushing with her lips. They seemed like the result of deep cuts. Her heart shrunk for him and the pain he might have felt.

"Too old to remember," Nuada whispered with a deep raspy voice. "That was not the first time humans captured me, I told you," he added as he caressed her hairs and back.

His voice resounded deeply inside his torso. His heart beat slowly. Too slow. She rose to face him and caressed the scars.

"Did humans do this to you?"

Nuada nodded slightly and blinked once. He caressed her face and drew a quick smile at the corners of his black mouth.

"Why didn't they heal like my bullet wound then?," Loreto asked, still focused on the prominent scars on his pale grayish skin.

Nuada smiled with empathy. He caressed her face with his knuckles as he ran his golden eyes over her features. His pupils dilated, opening his iris to the maximum.

"I was away from Bethmoora when it happened," he said in a low voice. "I abandoned the kingdom after my father offered the truce to the humans. It wasn't long for them to recognize me and take me as a prisoner. They healed on their own."

He spoke with a kind of resignation and acceptance that froze her bones. They had tortured him, and in that opportunity, nobody had helped him, Loreto supposed. Her eyes clouded with tears and the crying bumped violently against her throat.

She hugged him tight and enwrapped him with all her body. Nuada embraced her back. He breathed out on her ear with a tired sigh. Loreto clung back to his chest and remained like that for a long while. The pulse of his chest was slow and constant, like a delayed clock.

"Why does your heart beat so slow?," Loreto asked and placed her hand on his left pectoral. "Are you all right?"

Nuada smiled.

"Our bodies function differently than yours. Everything in our organisms advances slowly. I'm fine," he said in a low voice and brushed Loreto's irritated mouth with his thumb.

Suddenly he turned her on her back and clung to her chest. He hugged her by the waist and curled up against her as if begging for her embrace. Loreto tangled her fingers in his long hairs and scratched his scalp, and with the other hand she caressed his strong arm on her abdomen.

"Yours is a war drum," Nuada said with fascination in his voice and his ear pressed to her chest.

He kissed her breasts like tiny caresses and went down to her abdomen.

"Soon the fruit of our love will grow within you," he whispered against her skin.

He went up on her, licking and brushing everything on his way until he reached her mouth. They kissed with a flavor of excessive, naïve and new hope. She looked into his eyes. She loved him with all her soul. She had never loved a man this much. Nuada was not a man and perhaps for that reason she felt the overwhelming imperative to protect him with her life if necessary. Suddenly the memory of her miscarriage tightened her chest with anxiety. Then the doubt planted a seed in her mind and darkened the moment. He noticed.

"What if the children I can give you do not inherit your immortality? What's the use of a mortal heir for the throne of an elven kingdom?," Loreto whispered inside his mouth with a thin thread of voice. She cupped his face. "What if my body cannot create life?," she said, reduced to the dread of losing him.

Nuada embraced her tightly against his shoulder.

"Then it will be Nuala who will have to become the mother of an heir," he whispered in her ear. He separated a bit to face her. "If I only searched for an heir, I would have taken any elf of the kingdom as my wife and they wouldn't have refused. I love you and it is with you with whom I want to start over. With or without the throne, with or without the crown, with or without an heir, I'm already unable to imagine my life without you, Loreto."


	30. Chapter 30

Nuada woke up abruptly. He pushed himself up from the bed and in total darkness touched the floor until he found his lance. He remained completely still. Alert. His dilated iris sucking in the little light available and his golden pupils reflecting it forwards. Silence. Nothing.

"Nuada?"

He turned around suddenly. Loreto's sleepy voice brought him back to reality. It took him a few minutes to remember. He wasn't in his shelter in New York's sewers but in the human agency for paranormal investigation. He wasn't alone, but with Loreto. In her bedroom. In the middle of the night. He left his lance out of his reach and went back to bed. Immediately Loreto clung to him and hugged him by his waist as she snuggled pressed to his chest, slightly yawning against his skin. The softness and warmth of her naked body against his moved him. He hugged her strongly by her back towards him and kissed her head. He recalled the last hours. They had made love. He didn't remember when was the last time he had loved and been loved with such intensity. Probably when Bethmoora was still intact in all its glory and honor and his biggest worry was how to make a space between his lengthy training sessions to meet up with the elf who took his breath away. Her memory vanished with time. She had been one of the many casualties of the Great War. Back then he couldn't think about starting a family, for his father still reigned and he would continue doing so for eons to come. War changed everything. His once open and kind heart filled itself with revenge, venom and the pain of treason. He had never again thought of love with his heart so heavy with rage and resentment. The temptation of flesh had subdued his will on many occasions. His golden blood still ran hot through his veins and his heart always continued beating slowly and strongly in his chest. However, in those rare opportunities he allowed himself to feel sorry for himself in the small hours of the night under some bridge or climbed on some attic of the world in the darkness and on his own, he always concluded he hadn't been conceived to love but called to fight. The life of a warrior doesn't allow for any love promises. Any day can be the last, any encounter can be lethal.

Loreto let out a faint moan and made herself comfortable, clinging to his torso. Nuada smiled. What had he done to deserve a new chance to love? Emotion choked his throat and eyes. He swallowed hard and closed his eyes. Tears rolled down his temples and landed on the pillow. He enwrapped Loreto with all his body and tangled his legs with hers. He kissed her forehead and endured in silence the stubborn knot in his throat. Every day from today forth, every instant, second, every single smile of hers, every touch of her skin, every kiss... She'd go, Loreto was human, he had but a few more decades with her before losing her. Her body would give in to time as she would age. She'd get sick. It was humans' destiny. Nuada hugged tight and heard her moan. Loreto pushed herself up and faced him in the darkness. He saw her features perfectly. Absolutely gorgeous. She softly caressed his face and stopped at his wet eyes.

"What's going on? Are you all right?," she whispered, alarmed, against his mouth and dried his tears with her fingers.

Nuada kissed her lips and swallowed the tears in silence. Her hairs tickled his face. He could read her growing concern for him.

"I don't want to wake up one day and not find you here," he whispered against her lips. He caressed her cheek. "Now that I've found you... You'll go one day and you'll leave me alone for eternity."

Loreto curled herself on him, covering him totally with her body. She sobbed in his ear. She discreetly sniffled and moved away to face him.

"Before that you'll see me become a grandma all wrinkly and hunched," she whispered in between sobbing and chuckled with bitterness. "It isn't fair," she kissed his lips, "you'll carry on just as always and I'll become an old lady," she said amused and sniffled.

"And regardless, until the very last day of your life, I'll be there, I'll take your hand and I'll be the last one you'll see."

They merged in a kiss flavored by tears. Loreto hugged him by his neck and made it to his ear.

"Let's not talk about death. Let's make love."

  
  


*

  
  


A week went by in the blink of an eye. Time ran through the fingers in Loreto's arms. He had no news of the druids who stayed in Antrim, neither of the inhabitants of Bethmoora in the New York sewers nor of the human leaders. The world seemed to have made a halt in the middle of its mess to allow a kind of suspenseful peace Nuada wasn't sure he liked. Nevertheless, he couldn't complain. The agency's residents had already noticed the bond between him and Loreto. They saw him going in and out of her bedroom and noticed them exchanging looks loaded with lust across the library. He didn't understand the ease with which the demon Hellboy and his human partner openly showed their affection before everyone. Anung Un Rama may have been the son of the Fallen and therefore of royal blood in the underworld, yet despite his age, his behavior resembled a human teenager. Nuada and Nuala hadn't been raised like that. Much on the contrary. Affections were meant for intimacy. Out there, nothing and no one was to risk the respect and dignity of their position before the eyes of the world. Loreto didn't seem to understand it. One day she let herself fall on his lap, hugged him by his neck and stole a kiss from his mouth. In the library before everyone. Nuada was paralyzed as he swallowed the anger and shame the best he could. The comments and jokes soon arrived to his ears. It was humiliating. He took her away from his legs, stood up and went out to the aisle. Loreto walked behind him. She wondered out loud what was wrong with him. Nuada entered her private room and waited for her to join him inside to close the door behind him.

"You shall not do it anymore," he ordered and fixed her with his gaze. "We are not married, and even if we were, that is not the worthy behavior of a king and his queen."

"You do not boss me around! I'm not one of your servants!," she barked and pointed at him with her index. "Besides, what's so unworthy about a kiss, would you care to explain?"

Nuada sighed exhausted and rubbed his face roughly.

"That is not how a prince ought to behave! You're not my...," he paced the room from one side to the other searching for the right word, "my mistress, my concubine, you are my future queen! And that's how I wish others to see you."

Loreto observed him open-mouthed. She laughed to herself while she shook her head and sat at the border of the bed.

"I suppose I should have foreseen this," she said like a thought out loud. She sighed and faced him. "I understand what you mean but now make an effort to understand me," she gestured to her side and tapped the bed calling him.

Dubious, Nuada sat down at her side.

"Have you never been in love before? Have you never felt the urge to scream to the world your love for someone?"

The Prince drew a smile on this face and caressed her cheek.

"I never thought to feel like this again!," Loreto confessed and looked at him with her eyes shining bright.

"Like this how?," Nuada said and leaned his forehead on hers.

"Like it's the first time," she said and kissed his lips.

He sighed and cupped her face with both hands. They broke the kiss and smiled, still with half-closed eyes.

"I fell in love once an eternity ago," Nuada confessed and adjusted himself to face her. "We were young and the situation with the humans was still under control. I had nothing else to do but to study the art of war, train from morning to evening, accompany my father to his duties and engagements and learn from him. And she...," the Prince closed his eyes and attempted to remember, "she was the most gorgeous Elven maiden in the entire kingdom. She was one of the ladies in waiting of my mother. For as long as my father reigned, it was prohibited for Nuala and I to marry and start our own families. She knew it, yet as the crown prince, I liked then the idea of one day making her my queen and I had my mother's support for it."

Loreto observed him closely and in complete silence. She took his hand and kissed its back.

"What's her name?," she asked, barely audible.

Nuada looked her in the eyes.

"What was her name. She fell in the war," he uttered barely. "I don't remember her name."

Loreto embraced him slowly and nestled him between her neck and shoulder. Nuada let himself be hugged and sighed.

"What happened to your mother?," she asked in a whisper and moved away from him to face him.

"The humans took her prisoner and killed her."

Nuada swallowed hard and clenched his jaw. The piercing tears manifesting through the corners of his eyes wanted to betray him. Loreto gasped, shocked. She covered her wide-open mouth and questioned him with her gaze bulging in tears. The Prince's heart shrunk in pain at the memory and for her. He didn't wish to remember. The memory of those years hurt him and brought back the resentment against humanity he was so badly trying to leave behind. He dried Loreto's tears and hugged her to his chest. They collapsed on the bed. She pushed herself up on her elbow and softly caressed his hairs and face. She was capable of feeling his sorrow as hers, something unheard-of in humans.

"I'm so terribly sorry! I don't know what to say," she mumbled still in shock and softly kissed his lips.

The Prince responded to her gesture and slightly combed her hairs with his fingers.

"My mother wouldn't have allowed the truce with humans. She was the real leader of Bethmoora, not my father. He was weak and ended up yielding. We still suffer the consequences of his mistake today."

Three knocks on the door made them jump. They got up from the bed. Loreto opened. It was Agent Krauss.

"Forgive the intrusion in your privacy, Miss Clair," he said with solemnity. "The scientific commission of the WHO has finished their investigation and test on the ichor of the Elemental's descendants," he said with a metallic voice and strong German accent. "The human leaders have come to a decision about the future realm for Bethmoora."


	31. Chapter 31

The special and human agents gathered in the agency's library, attending the last minute call. Loreto and Nuada went out of her room and hurried up to join them. Doctor Tom Manning was standing a few steps away from the entrance with the report in his hands. Agent Krauss took his place at his right and faced the group. The director opened the envelope with the speed and calculation of someone who must decide which wire of a ticking bomb to cut. His hands shook. By his side, Agent Krauss remained perfectly still. The Prince advanced towards his sister and they held hands. Agent Sapien was at her other side, being the Princess's real partner. Loreto wished to hold Nuada's hand, yet their previous conversation dissuaded her.

"And well, Manning?," Agent Hellboy said with a rusty tone. "We've had enough suspense. Will you read it or should I?" he muttered, holding a Cohiba Robusto between his teeth.

Agent Sherman took it away from him and told him off with her gaze as she caressed her pregnant belly. The agent clicked his tongue annoyed and opened a bar of _**Snickers.**_ Doctor Manning read the report in silence. All eyes were on him. He faced the group with his jaw ajar and gave the report to Agent Krauss. How could he read without eyes or brain? Loreto didn't even bother herself to ask.

"All tests on the ichor of the forest demigods and carcinogenic tissue of different degrees and natures resulted positive. Their ichor can influence carcinogenic cells both human and animal and exterminate them in a matter of a week. The ichor has been successfully synthesized."

Everyone gasped and smiled, relieved. Nuada remained skeptical and in suspense.

"Where will we live?" the Princess uttered with a whisper filled with anxiety in her voice.

"Bethmoora is returning home," doctor Manning announced with pride.

The special agents burst in celebration. Nuada stood still. He could barely breathe. The Princess holding his hand was also in shock. Loreto searched his gaze. Her heart skipped a beat. Both siblings could hardly blink. Tears bulged at the corner of their eyes, open-mouthed, shaky lips, their gazes focused in front into the nothingness, their hands held so tight their knuckles stood out in white tensed skin. Suddenly they both turned and faced each other. They held both hands and looked at each other.

"Antrim," they whispered simultaneously like a drowned sobbing.

The twins came together in a tight embrace. They sobbed against each other's shoulders. Loreto swallowed hard and dried her own tears. Agent Sapien faced her while a single tear rolled down his blue skin and hung from his jaw. He stretched his web-footed hands towards Loreto and softly pulled her towards him to hug her. The gesture surprised her, yet she allowed it to happen and hugged him back. _We will be family,_ she heard in her mind. It wasn't Nuada nor the Princess. It was Agent Sapien. Slowly they separated, still holding hands. Suddenly the agent tilted his head and blinked a few times. He placed a hand on her abdomen.

"Loreto, you're pregnant," he said.

_What?!_ Loreto screamed in her mind. Instinctively she put her hands on her abdomen and tried to search into Abraham's big blue eyes for the confirmation of his prediction. The Elven siblings broke their embrace, Nuada turned and faced them both with skeptical eyes soaking in tears. He questioned Abraham with no words, as if he telepathically urged him to verify what he had just said.

"Yes, I'm sure, Your Highness," he said nervously. "My readings are a hundred percent accurate," he pointed at Agent Sherman. "Isn't that so, Liz?"

The agent smiled and nodded.

Nuada turned to Loreto and tentatively touched her abdomen with an open hand. He looked into her eyes. Tears had soaked his eyelashes and crystallized his amber gaze. He gasped at the discovery. He drew a half smile. He leaped on her and embraced her in his arms. Loreto sighed astonished and clung to his back with her face buried in his chest. She let out the sobbing she was holding behind her vocal chords. Nuada hunched towards her neck and could not control his crying. The special agents and the Princess celebrated in their surroundings. Nestled to his chest and embracing him tightly to his back, she heard the good wishes and congratulations of everybody. They released the pressure and separated to face each other. Nuada cupped her face in his hands and without further ado, he kissed her on the mouth. Everyone cheered and laughed. They broke the kiss and looked deeply into each other's eyes. Nuada took her hand and faced the group.

"Loreto shall be my queen and the mother of my first-born, the heir to the throne of Bethmoora," he announced with pride and looked at his sister. "And you, Nuala, seem to also have found a partner in life," he said smiling and looked at Agent Sapien.

The Princess blushed and lowered her head. She took Abraham's hand in hers.

"I wouldn't wish anyone else by my side," she said, choked with emotion. She raised her gaze and with an earnest demeanor she spoke to her brother. "However, the royal council must first approve of these unions for we both would be marrying to beings of other species, something unprecedented in Bethmoora."

"I know," Nuada said dryly. "The royal council must remember that when I ascend to the throne, I shall have to take an oath upon an incomplete crown which is also unprecedented in our history. If they agree with that, why wouldn't they approve of a human queen?"

"After all you've achieved for your people securing their return to the surface, I don't think they'll have the guts to deny you a thing, Prince," Agent Hellboy said and gave him a strong slap on the back that made him stagger.

Loreto couldn't help but crack up at the stinky eye Nuada threw to the red agent.

"The inter-species marriage has yet to be approved by human laws," Agent Krauss intervened. "Of course Bethmoora's laws function independently to ours, however it is good Your Highnesses know that, should your unions not be approved by the royal council of Bethmoora, they won't be it either outside of it."

"This guy doesn't know how to have fun," Agent Hellboy blurted jokingly and dismissively pointed at him with the thumb of his stone hand. "Let the couples enjoy the moment, gasbag!"

The German agent let out steam through his mechanical gills and left the library. Amused, Agent Sherman told off her partner for always addressing the team leader with nicknames to which he replied by clicking his tongue.

They heard a sudden powerful impact coming from the main door, and it rendered everyone on their toes. Loreto clung herself against Nuada's arm. What sounded next left no doubt of its nature. The explosion shook the facilities like an earthquake. The floor trembled under their feet and their ears rang a deafening beep. Her heart beat out of control in her chest, hyperventilating her. Doctor Manning ran towards the inner part of the library while he shouted orders through his walky-talky and drew his gun. The special agents ran to the aisle, already holding their service weapons in their hands and pointing forwards. Princess Nuala begged Abraham not to leave her, but Nuada took her by the arm and gathered her along with Loreto while he placed himself before both of them like a living shield. The stench of gunpowder entered her nostrils and made her tear. She held back the sudden gag effect that watered her mouth with acid and bitterness. Loreto took the Princess's hand, and they exchanged a look of horror.

"FBI! Freeze! Put your hands in the air!," was heard from the aisle.

The shots paralyzed the Princess in an ice cube. She couldn't stop trembling. From the outside they heard Agent Hellboy battling with the intruders. The open threshold of the library allowed Loreto to spot the fire halo of Agent Sherman. _Where's Abraham?_ A group of black-suited agents covered the special ones. The shooting was now crossing and total. Nuada reached for his lance and sword, but he didn't have them on him. Quickly, he studied his surroundings and ran towards a grand stone statue crowning the library, which in its center held a sword. He gripped it and struggled until he managed to get it loose and take it out in one pull. He quickly turned around to check on them both and with his eyes blazing and alert he made sure they were all right. He took position before Loreto and the Princess facing the door and spun the sword from his wrist.

"We know you have Loreto Clair kidnapped!," one of the FBI agents shouted above the beating and shooting.

Loreto opened her eyes, astounded.

"I'm not kidnapped!," she shouted back at the top of her lungs.

The fire ceased. The FBI agents opened their way into the library. Agent Hellboy and Abraham pointed at them with their weapons and followed each of their steps from up close. Princess Nuala sighed in relief as she saw her partner was still alive. Loreto squeezed her hand and held her by her arm. Agent Sherman and the black-suited agents surrounded the intruders.

"That's the man we are searching for," said one of them and pointed at Nuada. "Drop your weapon!," they shouted and pointed at his head at a few meters of distance.

For an instant, a lapse behind the hands of the clock, Loreto saw in her mind Nuada die. The bullets entering his skull, the blood spilling, his proud stature falling to the floor like a tower, his lifeless body motionless on the ground. The inner scream shook her and made her shiver from head to toes. Her heart shrunk and a freezing coldness enwrapped her. Death surrounded her everywhere. First the carcinogenic tumour, the bullet that hit her arm, later the metastasis, the war between elves and humans that never was, the lives Nuada's revenge had claimed. She placed one shaky hand on her abdomen. A new life. A new opportunity for her, for Nuada and his people, for Abraham, for all those who suffer cancer in the world. A weak and far light that through a crack was entering through into the total abyss. She blinked. Nuada, the father of her future first-born, the being she most love in the world, remained stoic and fixed before the agents' weapons. Loreto ran. The Princess tried to catch her by her arm. She called her name that vanished in the background. She ran and covered Nuada with her body. He grabbed her by the arm and ordered her to move. Abraham and the special agents also ordered her so.

"Put down your weapons," she said with a flat voice. "You came here searching for me. Here I am."

The FBI agents looked at each other. One by one they holstered their guns yet remained alert. Loreto looked at the special agents.

"You too, please."

Dubious, Agent Sherman extinguished her fire and Agents Hellboy and Sapien gave a step backwards and reluctantly lowered their weapons. Abraham ran towards the Princess and they embraced.

"I'm fine," Loreto began, still unmovable before the FBI agent team. "Now I am at least. A month ago I still had cancer. If now I'm alive, it's thanks to this agency who removed my malignant tumor and to Nuada," she motioned as if wanting to turn back and gestured behind her. "Who you were about to shoot is the prince of the elves and my future husband."

The FBI agents didn't know how to react. Nuada took her by her shoulders and placed himself before her. He still held the statue's sword in his hand. The agents neared their hands towards their holstered weapons. Loreto grabbed him by his arm and supported her forehead against his back. _No more fighting, please,_ she begged in silence and hoped he heard her in his mind. Nuada turned back slightly towards her and let the sword fall.

Doctor Manning appeared from the back section of the library and explained the situation and the events of the past weeks. The FBI agents had found Loreto's whereabouts through her cell phone's signal, which they had cleared out, Loreto remembered. During her stay since Nuada and the Princess's trip to Northern Ireland, she kept it without battery. She remembered when, after having been cured from the metastasis, she showed Nuada right there in the agency's library the pictures of her apartment surrounded by paparazzi. Her agent had written and sent links to news articles online. Mitch was not to blame for this operation. The investigation about her disappearance might have led to him in search of clues, Loreto concluded.

"Pri-pri-prince Nuada is a five-thousand-year-old elf, you ca-ca-can't just point at him with your weapons like that. He's the oldest royalty on the planet!," Doctor Manning managed to say with growing anxiety.

The agents' jaws fell to the floor and immediately studied Nuada from head to toes with equal astonishment as also curiosity.

"Nuada is not guilty for my disappearance," Loreto interrupted and right away she felt all eyes on her. "I am. It's a long story and the agency's director will tell it better than I. It is only thanks to Elven medicine I am still alive."

Doctor Manning turned to Loreto, pointed at her with his finger and smiled. He ran his eyes through the special agents.

"The power of word, see?" he pointed at Loreto every time. "Everything can be solved by speaking," he said with a triumphant tone and content with himself.

The agency's director turned towards the FBI agents and escorted them to the exit as he explained why Loreto couldn't yet make public the real reason for her disappearance.

Agent Hellboy chuckled and shook his head. He hugged his partner Agent Sherman by her shoulders and walked out as Abraham still held Princess Nuala's hand. She still looked deeply affected and challenged by the situation. Abraham escorted her out of the library at a slow pace as if he wanted to save the Princess from any extra effort.

Nuada turned to Loreto. The depth of his golden gaze knew no limits. Everything about him screamed relief, rage and joy simultaneously as his features remained hard and fixed. His clenched fists, half-opened lips, narrowed eyes, tight frown.

"You shouldn't have placed yourself before the fire line," he said with a rusty and cold voice. He moved a step closer to her.

"And you shouldn't have challenged them when they were pointing at your head with loaded weapons ready to shoot," Loreto said with her voice about to break. "You're not alone anymore, we need you," she uttered in a sigh and touched her abdomen.

The Prince's countenance fell apart. He shortened the distance, invading her space with his presence and lowered his head against hers. He closed his eyes and exhaled, faltering as if he finally let out the immeasurable weight on his shoulders. Loreto hugged him by his waist and Nuada embraced her in his arms. She inhaled deeply the essence his coat emanated. It was his own and unique perfume. A hug to the senses with all his soul, a caress in the dark small hours, a deep kiss reaching the cosmos and back.

"Don't do that anymore," Nuada whispered, hunched on her and nestled against her neck.

His breath against her naked skin gave her goosebumps, and a chill manifested at her nape and went down towards her legs like an expansive wave. Nuada moved away from her and cupped her face in both hands. He looked into her eyes with his tearing up and glowing from his golden pupils.

"After all the road I've walked in the shadows, after carrying with the darkness that took possession of my heart, now that I've found you, a step away from returning home and about to become father and king, losing you would be a terrible joke," he said in a low voice with his forehead leaned against hers. He exhaled and closed his eyes.

Agent Krauss burst into the library and broke with his presence the small bubble that surrounded them. He searched for Nuada and let him know the agency engineers had opened the goblin technology safe brought from Antrim.

"Your Highness might want to check its content," he said and gestured towards the door.

Nuada turned to Loreto and offered his hand. They both followed the German agent until they reached one of the offices in the aisle. A group of specialists awaited expectantly for them, surrounding a working surface. The golden box had a complex gear puzzle at the front and sides of the lid. It was opened ajar. Nuada neared and immediately the engineers and Agent Krauss moved away from the artifact. The Prince swallowed hard and his jaw fell open as soon as he looked into the box.

"It cannot be," he mumbled barely with a thin thread of voice.

He ventured a hand into the box and produced a crown. It was golden with thin golden arms in ivy shapes and tips. In its center there was a large oval-shaped opal with an entire cosmos trapped in its interior and at the sides, cascades of fine golden chains. Nuada turned to Loreto and slowly and carefully placed it on her head. She questioned him with her eyes, completely stunned. Next, she saw him rummage focused in the interior. Loreto leaned forwards and held the crown, fearing it would fall. She was open-mouthed at what she discovered. Among the sea of sparkles and glowing, she recognized a collection of jewels.The opaque-golden box seemed like a treasure discovered after an eternity awaiting in the shadows. Nuada took out a thick ring. It was made of worn-out gold and worked with similar symmetrical engraved details to tree leaves shapes. The center showed an oval opal of similar dimensions than the one in the crown. He took her right hand and put it on her ring finger.

"These are the jewels of the queen of Bethmoora, the last one who wore them was my mother," he said with emotion in his voice." Bethmoora will at last have a queen once again."

He kissed the back of her hand and put down a knee to the floor.

"Do me the honor of ruling by my side for what's left of our lives. Let us join our races in one pact of love and so that nothing and nobody will ever again threaten our newfound peace."

Loreto took his hands in hers and kissed their backs. She pulled him up on his feet. The knot in her throat didn't allow her to breathe normally. A moment ago, she feared for him, at the aim of the FBI agents ready to kill him. A few minutes ago Nuada had matched himself face to face against human war technology armed only with a prop sword and all his battlefield experience from his thousands of years of existence. All to protect her and his twin sister. He who's willing to sacrifice his life for his people is a hero. She remembered the first time she heard speaking about him. He had been described as a dangerous terrorist. His hands, now interlaced with hers, gave and took away life like the Elemental. His heart opened and closed forever. His gaze shone with equal strength the thirst for vengeance as also eternal love. Nuada didn't know about halfway. He wasn't made for anything less than to rule or to live in exile. To live or to die. To love or to hate. His road in the shadows was reaching an end. It was now the beginning to the return towards the light.


	32. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

County of Antrim, Northern Ireland, 2013

The morning light still produced anxiety to Nuada as soon as he woke up and was conscious of the sun rays on his skin and eyes. Those few seconds back to reality, still half asleep, he had to remind himself that all windows and glasses of the royal palace of Bethmoora were made with the highest technology for UV blockage. The brightness blinded him even through the thick wine-red and sheer curtains. He pulled the comforter above his head, achieving a much-needed darkness and searched for Loreto on the bed. He clung to her naked body, glueing himself to her back and embraced her in his arms. He caressed her bulgy abdomen and buried his nose in her hair and neck, intoxicating himself with her aroma. The Queen roared, cuddled against him and turned her head to steal a kiss from his mouth. They laughed and greeted each other good morning between snuggles and kisses.

The day began specially busy that morning in the palace. It was five years since its construction commissioned by the Irish government, the EU, WHO and UN authorities along with the B.P.R.D. The representatives of Northern Ireland had bid the Bethmoora clan welcome back to their land with open arms, having immense pride and honor to have such a selected group of millenary beings living in their lands as they always should have been. The human authority's commission spared no expenses. The cancer-healing Elven medicine opened the doors ajar for their return to the surface with dignity and claim their original land. The exodus of Bethmoora from the New York sewers to their native home in Antrim was a delicate operation carried out in the dark of night hours and moved to their new residences spread all along the county built simultaneously with the royal palace. Today would be the first time Bethmoora opened its doors to the human authorities in an official reception. The elves in charge of the grand dinner scheduled for that evening were diligently coming and going as they exchanged orders and instructions in their native Gaelic.

After the wedding between the now King Nuada and Queen Loreto celebrated in the original royal chamber of Bethmoora surrounded by the Elemental's descendants and officiated by one of the Elven druids, she began taking private daily lessons with one of the millenary wise elves to master the native language of her husband and his people. Its grammar presented just as big a challenge as also her new role as the Queen of Bethmoora did. She still hadn't gotten used to being treated and described as such. The birth of their first-born, Prince Éon, Goldenspear, had motivated her even more to study the roots and culture her son was the heir to. From his father, he had inherited his original opal and emerald eyes and his birthmarks on his temples and cheekbones; whereas from his mother, her light brown wavy hairs and her pale rosy complexion. A little over four years old, the prince had already begun his training to follow his father's steps. Nuada himself took him to ride every day after sunset and trained him in the art of combat with lances, spears and swords. Loreto tried to oppose the single idea, her little one resulted injured in a fighting lesson shrunk her heart with anxiety, yet soon she realized it was the tradition of the royal family of Bethmoora and Éon's destiny as the King's first-born to follow his steps. They still didn't know whether their son had inherited Nuada's immortality. Beyond what was expected from him, for Loreto he was a beautiful boy growing up happily surrounded by love and protection. His cousin, Princess Celestia, Seawhisper, was born almost a year later. Her parents, Princess Nuada and Prince Abraham, lived in the left wing of the palace. The little girl inherited the bluish skin and sea eyes of her father whereas from her mother, her original long straight blond hair, her birth marks on her temples and cheekbones and her features. At the short age of three years old, the little girl barely spoke because her mental powers were so strong, she could communicate with fluency and clarity without uttering a single word with those around her. The King had ordered telepathic and psychic instruction for his niece as soon as they realized of her capabilities. Regardless, she played with her cousin Éon, running along the palace aisles and stairs like two normal children. Their laughs and screams gave even more life to the superb building.

Days went by filled with activities for Their Royal Highnesses. Nuada and Nuala were in conversations with human authorities of the UN and also with scientists and doctors specialized in climate change. Alongside the Elven druids, they were developing a hybrid tree between the Elemental's descendants and the European Maple tree to reforest areas with demographic density. The UN experts and legal advisers redacted a regulation for international protection for the new forests to save them from all cutting and that punished with strong sentences those who damaged them or started an arson. On his end, Prince Abraham, once Agent Sapien, continued helping the agency in New York whenever his experience and capabilities were required. They picked him up with a private jet and spent weeks in the agency working side by side with Agents Hellboy, Sherman and Krauss like in the old times. Loreto divided her time between Éon's upbringing, her Gaelic lessons and her brand new music studio built in the large basement of the royal palace. She continued making music, yet she had decided to cut all strings with the record label and become an independent singer songwriter like in the early days of her career. Her concerts were scarce. Five years after the events of that fall of 2008, the press continued to step on her heels, now as the Queen of the magical kingdom of Bethmoora. The few opportunities she had to meet again with her audience were intimate events with a limited pre-selling and reservations to ensure her safety. Rarely did she ever fly to the United States, and when she did, she remained anonymous and travel with the private jet placed at their disposal by the Northern Ireland government. The successfully synthesized cure for cancer by the WHO scientists was already available for the world population in the format of drugs and vaccines and could be obtained at every drugstore and public health center. The reaction was massive. Thousands of videos on the Internet with moving stories of survivors who between tears thanked the elves of Bethmoora for a second chance to live. Many traveled to the County of Antrim in Northern Ireland and left flower bouquets, candles and letters against the tall protective walls like totems of gratitude.

The stronghold where the dormant soldiers of the Golden Army were once kept, was now the home of the vigorous forest of the Elemental's descendants. The Elven druids and Their Royal Highnesses were the only ones who could access the royal chamber of Bethmoora. The goblins hid the golden soldiers in their passive state deep into the guts of the chamber to make space for the flora that now thrived. The goblins also opened cracks through the walls to allow the ground water to filter through and feed the forest. On their end, the elves slowly began to expose themselves to weak amounts of sunlight and heat every sunrise and sunset for a few seconds. Every day their skins and eyes seemed to resist it for a little longer, however the treatment left them exhausted and hurting. Nuada and Nuala also joined their fellow elves in this practice, yet their organisms still could not resist the sun.

Both the royal palace as well as the residences built in its surroundings on the large grounds of the Antrim County counted with an underground space as an inhabitable basement. The magical creatures of Bethmoora still didn't rely on the windows with UV blockage technology and so they spent most of the day in their underground chambers. Night remained their natural habitat. The sea and its dramatic coast against the cliffs of Antrim had become their new source of food and playground. Every time they could, King Nuada and his brother-in-law Prince Abraham joined them and swam for hours in the high tides under the moonlight. The Irish government wasn't very content about the multitude of orcs, goblins and a variety of paranormal creatures wandering freely through the County at night yet King Nuada had been clear that the return of Bethmoora to Antrim was to be secured for all members of the clan. The local humans kept their distance from the County and still weren't used to their new neighbors. Regardless, the interest for them increased as time passed by. Both national and international media treated the news as a historical event and crowded against the tall protective walls of Bethmoora for days and weeks at a time trying to photograph or film some creatures, or to capture with their lenses the elusive and discreet elves. Who they also badly wished to catch a glimpse of was the human queen of Bethmoora.

The story of her disappearance, cancer, recovery and wedding engagement with the crown prince to the Elven throne of Bethmoora had captivated the entire world. For months, the media of all countries tried in vain to get an interview with her. There were many reports about her diagnosis and the real significance of Elven medicine, they speculated about the future of her music career and predicted her life as the queen of a magical and millenary folk as the only human among them. Many joked that her engagement to the then Prince Nuada had rendered any other royal wedding in human history meaningless. Both the public statement and the conference press were done along the director of the B.P.R.D. hadn't counted with Nuada. In private conversations, Loreto had tried to make him understand people simply wanted to see him to know to whom they were indebted for the gift that was the definitive cure for cancer. She also attempted to explain the growing interest people had for their wedding. Her then fiance set the rules right there and then. He would not give interviews, he would not allow pictures or videos of him to be made, he would not speak to anyone other than the authorities involved in the return of Bethmoora to Antrim. He was no exotic being to pose for the humans' morbid eyes. Loreto respected his position, and she barely referred to him during the conference press. Their secrecy had the opposite effect as the one they wished. The public opinion's interest in her and her wedding with a millenary magical being increased to stratospheric levels. The only humans besides Loreto's parents who attended their wedding was the B.P.R.D. director, Tom Manning and Agent Sherman accompanying her partner Agent Hellboy. Having explained the situation to them and what happened during the fall of 2008 had also been challenging. Their initial reaction was of horror and panic. Afterwards they felt an almost childish curiosity for Nuada and his people. The birth of Éon finally won them over. Loreto had made them grandparents and there was no way to top that. They visited Bethmoora frequently and stayed for weeks at a time.

The King finished buttoning up his coat and adjusted his sword belt to his waist. Loreto corrected his mandarin collar, divided his long hair with her fingers in two halves that fell over his shoulders and adjusted his incomplete crown to make sure it wouldn't move. Nuada leaned his forehead against hers and with closed eyes he sighed slowly. Loreto cupped his face in her hands and rose on the tip of her toes to softly kiss him on the lips.

"It's just a few hours, then they'll go away," she whispered and tried to sound casual and cheerful.

Nuada caressed her abdomen through her dress and looked her in the eyes.

"Do you feel all right? If during the dinner you feel tired, we can end the reception earlier and you can retire to rest," he said, frowning and with his open hand on her belly.

Loreto suddenly jumped. She placed her hand on his.

"Did you feel that?," she asked with a smile on her lips.

The King nodded and stole a kiss from her mouth.

"She's been very restless today, she knows we'll have guests," she said amused.

"She?"

"It's a girl, I'm certain of it. I'd like Éon to have a little sister. Wouldn't you like to have a daughter?," she said as she caressed his cheek and chin.

Nuada hugged her tightly, hunching over her and hid his face in the space between her shoulder and neck.

"I'd love to," he whispered against her skin and placed a kiss right there.

They separated. Nuada adjusted her crown and combed her hairs as if erasing the consequence of his embrace.

"I'm fine. You just want an excuse to cancel today's commitment," Loreto joked.

Nuada took her face in his open hands and kissed her deeply. The floor trembled under her feet and her knees threatened to surrender to her weight and let her fall. She clung to his back and hung from his neck, devoted to the caress of feeling him completely hers. They broke the kiss sighing in each other's mouths and smiled as they locked their eyes.

"I won't be able to kiss you later before strangers, not like this at least," Nuada panted against her mouth and bit her lower lip.

"Yes you can, nobody will judge you wrongly for a kiss. We have a son. What do you think they think? That he was born out of the Earth like your parents?"

Her husband cracked up. He tried to reclaim his composure. He stood up proudly in his stature and adjusted his coat. He offered his arm to her.

"My queen?," he said with a cheeky sparkle in the corner of his amber gaze.

  
  


*

  
  


"Your Royal Highnesses, wise druids, elves, and humans gathered today," the Secretary of State of Northern Ireland began, standing in his place at the dinner before the hosts and guests. "It is with great pride and honor that today we can again declare Northern Ireland as the home of Bethmoora, as it always was and will be. How much wisdom and knowledge amass the beings that since thousands of years live on our planet? Which discoveries and inventions will we be able to achieve in an alliance with them for everyone's benefit? How much history have they witnessed, how many highs and lows of mankind have they witnessed and suffered from? Such were some of the questions I asked myself as I learned of the actual existence of the elves and their magical members of the Bethmoora clan. As a simple human devoted to the service of my country, I never questioned the mythological nature of the legends that spoke of millenary beings originally from this beautiful region of the world. In the last five years, I've taken the time to study the history of the folk that today welcomes us here in their home. A word comes to mind and an answer naturally manifests from the heart. Shame. Forgiveness," he looked to the King and his fellow elves. "History between our races is tainted with blood on both sides of the spectrum, however, while our ancestors could keep on living on Earth, benefiting from the truce offered by Your Majesty's father, King Balor, Bethmoora had to escape underground to survive. The damage has been immeasurable and the wound that divides us is almost impossible to heal, yet today we have a unique opportunity to recover some of the time wasted and learn to live in peace."

The applause all along the grand table was unanimous. Delegates from all corners of the world and of the international organizations actively involved in the return of Bethmoora to Antrim were among the guests.

"I've proposed to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom to suggest the original royal chamber of Bethmoora here in Antrim as a candidate for UNESCO's World Heritage Site and I got her support for the motion." The applause resounded strongly again through the high-roof hall of the superb palace. "I propose a toast for peace and a multi-species society where all races can live with respect and dignity."

Everyone stood up and raised their glasses simultaneously. The guests took their seats again and focused their attention on King Nuada, who remained on his feet.

"You and I may be essentially different, Secretary of State, yet deep down we want the same for our people: a life of peace and dignity. The incomplete crown I carry on my head is a constant reminder of the road that of thousands of years I thought was the only solution for Bethmoora: the total extermination of the human race," the guests opened their eyes in shock and adjusted themselves uncomfortably on their seats. The Northern Ireland Secretary of State continued focused on the King. "It is this crown that my son will wear, knowledgeable of the bloodshed road that ended up today. History mustn't be forgotten for it is its scars which prevent us from repeating it, however neither should we allow it to dictate our road ahead. The future looks hopeful for our societies if the motto continues to be respect and dignity for all creatures, human, animal, normal and magical who inhabit the Earth. There is however something I must disagree on with you. Bethmoora's royal chamber cannot be a World Heritage Site. Not only because it wasn't built by human hands, but also because it doesn't belong to Humanity, but to us, the Sons Of The Earth." The general mutter filled the air with tension above the large table. "I accept the gesture as a symbolic one, yet my refusal shall prevail. The real bond that will strengthen our new pact is sitting at the right of Queen Loreto," he pointed to Éon.

The little prince was at that moment eating a pea with his bare hands, unaware of the situation. Everyone voiced their collective endearment. Loreto caught her son's attention between laughs as she wiped his mouth with a cloth napkin. Éon ran the length of the table with his big opal and emerald eyes and, as he saw himself the center of attention, he clung to his mother and cried. Everyone laughed and were moved with tenderness. Nuada couldn't help to chuckle at the scene.

"What better bond between our kinds than family?," he said, his voice moved by emotion as he watched Loreto at his right sitting Éon on her lap to comfort him. "See him there, in whose veins runs Elven and human blood, my son, prince Éon, shall be the harbinger of our new peace. He shall be the heir not only to the throne of Bethmoora but also he shall hold the delicate balance of the human race in his hands. He won't allow any threat to his mother's race as much as he shall defend the autonomy and honor of his father's. It will be my mission to ensure to ingrain in him the best values of both worlds so that his descendants follow his steps to guarantee the continuation of our alliance."

The ovation was unanimous. The guests were still focused on the little prince while others observed with growing curiosity his cousin, Princess Celestia, who sat in front of her mother, Princess Nuala. King Nuada rose his glass and looked above the table, awaiting his guests to join him.

"For Mother Earth, one mother, powerful giver and destroyer of all life on the planet who embraces us all equally. For the return to the light."

"For the return to the light!"

  
  


  
  


**THE END**


End file.
